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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369341">We Can Pretend</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyMaryMarie/pseuds/MollyMaryMarie'>MollyMaryMarie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Fic that Uses a Song as Inspiration, Anal Sex, Attempted Sex in a Closet, Attempted Sex on a countertop, Butler ... to Lover?? idk, Butler AU, Eventual Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Non-magical AU but Remus is still a werewolf, Oral Sex, Sex in a Rolls Royce, Sirius wears glasses, THE BIG HOUSE FIC, WARNING Orion uses some slurs in the last chapter, You all know how I am, basically porn with a plot, butler fic, he AND REMUS also speak French so get with me on that, i'm tagging it because it fucks me up ok, like all my other fics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:08:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>56,510</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26369341</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/MollyMaryMarie/pseuds/MollyMaryMarie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lupins have served the ancient and noble house of Black for generations, and all of it culminated in the son of the butler falling in love with the son of the estate. </p><p>Cocktail parties! Fancy suits! Speaking French! Sex in a Rolls Royce! That rich people shit!</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sirius Black/Remus Lupin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>138</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>415</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. I Know That You Know The Feeling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>I know that you know the feeling, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>I know that we’re giving in</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The muted buzz of the alarm clock at his bedside table woke him shortly before dawn, as it did every morning. Under a deep groan, he rolled over in his bed to shut it off. If this were any other job, if he worked for any other family, he would stay in bed – turn over and go back to sleep and try to continue that dream he’d been having. But then, if he worked for any other family, he wouldn’t be having that dream he’d been having. Because <em>he</em> wouldn’t be in it.</p><p>In the dark, he rose and layered on his uniform, the same thing he wore every day – a black, three-piece suit with a grey waistcoat. It was the same style suit his father still wore, the same style his grandfather had worn. This one was a tiny bit different because there was a sentimental little tear in the breast of the waistcoat that he intentionally left unrepaired.</p><p>Despite how he knew the Lady of the house would fuss over it, he refused to comb his unruly hair down again this morning. Instead, he ran his fingers through it and mussed it that much more, imagining the expression it could incite. Imagining, hoping, fantasizing.</p><p>The kitchen was empty – his father had left for the main house already. Unsurprising, his father’s work ethic was sturdier than his own. Truthfully, it wasn’t the work that drew him from bed in the morning. It wasn’t the legacy his father had crafted for him. It was pain. A pain that suffered next to him, day after day, until he put it to bed every night. It followed him in dreams.</p><p>His family had served the noble and ancient house of Black for more generations than he had met, on his father’s side. There was some outlandish number of years that accompanied the number of generations, a number that extended beyond a century, but numbers mattered little.</p><p>What mattered was not the family. It wasn’t the wealth of the family or the prestige of the family or even <em>their</em> service to the family. It wasn’t Lady Walburga or Master Orion. What mattered was that, throughout the years, Remus had fallen in love with the eldest son, Sirius.</p><p>They had grown up together, though they had been raised in different households. In the main house, Sirius had been taught advanced academics, piano, violin, foreign languages, fencing, poetry – a vast number of elitist subjects, instilled by expert tutors. In the butler’s quarters, Remus’ mother had given him a modest home schooling, while he simultaneously learned his father’s trade. While the work took precedence, Remus never lacked in education.</p><p>As he shadowed his father, he spent a significant amount of time watching Sirius, knowing from a young age that he would become to Sirius what his father was to Orion. With that goal in mind, he began memorizing Sirius’ mannerisms, his behavior, his habits, his preferences. He learned to recognize the different intonation in Sirius’ voice and what each one meant. He spent hours studying the movement of Sirius’ fingers on the keys of the piano or his preferred technique in fencing or understanding which poets Sirius favourited and <em>why</em>.   </p><p>Despite growing to know him so intimately, Remus had, at first, been terrified of Sirius, afraid of the boy with the perfect posture and the ghostly complexion and the thick, dark hair. And for good reason. Master Orion was a brute of a man, throwing dishes if his breakfast wasn’t precisely the way he wanted it. Remus saw the way Master Orion treated his father, and he expected to be treated the same by Sirius, when Sirius was old enough to comprehend the weight of his own power. Waiting for that day was like sitting on a powder keg. It was agony.</p><p>Until one day, Remus caught Sirius sticking his tongue out at his mother, behind her back as she turned away. As she whirled around, he professionally covered his expression with an innocent smile. Lady Walburga had turned to Remus and asked him if Sirius had been making a face at her. Without even hesitating, without even looking at Sirius, who had been waving desperately to get Remus’ attention, Remus lied to protect him, understanding what Sirius might do if Remus didn’t put <em>his</em> wishes above every other in the house. ‘<em>No, my Lady. Of course not</em>.’</p><p>That day, there had been a smile on Sirius’ face that Remus could never have expected, a smile that he could still recall. Something soft and grateful, but curious and confused. When Lady Walburga had finally walked away, Sirius had walked right over and hugged Remus tightly.</p><p>From that moment on, Sirius found excuses to sneak away from his studies to spend time with the boy who lived in the smaller house across the grounds. They spent many hours chasing each other through the topiaries, around the hedges, stomping through Lady Walburga’s prized hybrid-black roses and blaming it on the peacocks. They became inseparable, hiding their friendship from their parents, for they both knew the lecture awaiting them if it was discovered.   </p><p>Remus wasn’t sure when it happened. He wasn’t sure when his feelings had evolved into this thing that weighed down his lungs and burdened his heart. Perhaps it was when he found Sirius smoking a cigarette on the third-floor balcony with his head raised to the night sky, the stars gathering to form a sharp, white line down the edges of his defined throat. Perhaps it was the way Sirius had smirked when he held the cigarette out to offer Remus a drag or the inciteful way he watched Remus lean in to place his lips on the cigarette while it was still between Sirius’ slender fingers. Maybe it was the way Sirius had pulled him in close, gripping him by the waistcoat so strongly that it tore one of the tailored seams, hiding together on the edge of the balcony as Lady Walburga passed. Maybe it was the surprise in Sirius’ silver eyes when Remus had pressed into him, gripping tightly to the railing of the balcony on either side of Sirius’ waist, with smoke trickling from his still-open lips. Maybe it was the way Sirius tilted his head, just enough to make Remus <em>wonder</em>, before Lady Walburga’s voice startled him from it.</p><p>No, that may have been the catalyst, being so close to Sirius, close enough to <em>taste</em> the smoke still on Sirius’ lips, close enough to question Sirius’ intent, but Remus had found himself drawn to Sirius for quite some time before then. It was in the way Sirius smiled at him, in the way Sirius always covered for him with Master Orion when Remus had been spending too much time with Sirius instead of working, in the way Sirius treated him like a friend, rather than a servant.</p><p>Silently, he moved through the main house, remembering how nearly his first lesson in this line of work was to move and to serve without ever being observed doing it. As a result, Remus could move quite stealthily, his footsteps unheard as they pressed into expensive carpet.</p><p>It was a workday. A work from home day, rather, as were all working days. After Sirius had completed the equivalent of secondary school through private tutoring, his father had brought him in as somewhat of a business partner. However, much like his father, the work rarely required him to leave the house. It was all management, and if it couldn’t be done remotely, there was a spacious conference room on the third floor where meetings were held.</p><p>In fact, Remus could count the number of times on one hand that Sirius had even left the grounds <em>unsupervised</em>, despite being in his early twenties. If Sirius left, he left with his parents, or rarely with their chauffer, off to some business meeting or black-tie event or charity auction.</p><p>On top of that, Sirius rarely had anyone visit him, not including potential relationships built on business ventures that his father was trying to secure. Nobody came just to see <em>Sirius</em>, they came to see what they could get <em>out of</em> Sirius, what they would win by being close to him.</p><p>That wasn’t to say that Sirius wasn’t wildly popular, especially with single, blue-blooded females. After all, whose parents <em>wouldn’t</em> have something substantial to gain from marrying off their daughter to the eldest son of the wealthiest family in Britain? Still, Remus hadn’t ever seen the same girl twice, despite his mother’s obvious and loud disapproval of his dismissal of them.</p><p>As a result, Remus imagined that Sirius should’ve been rather lonely, but he never saw evidence of it. Instead, he seemed quite content to spend all his free time (of which there was very little) in Remus’ company. Absently, Remus wondered if the reason Sirius latched onto him was because he was easily accessible. Not from fondness, but from lack of worthier alternative.</p><p>While he hoped that was his own self-loathing speaking, he would take whatever he could get. Honestly, maybe it was a little true from his own perspective, as well. Sure, he knew a couple blokes outside of the estate, but he was closer to Sirius than he was to anyone else.</p><p>Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was with Sirius at nearly every moment of Sirius’ day. It had become his responsibility to <em>keep Sirius on track</em>, as Lady Walburga would say. To make sure he woke at the correct time, to make sure he was eating appropriately in order to maintain peak physicality, to make sure he never tried to skip out of any of his work (not that Remus hadn’t helped him do that on several occasions, feigning exasperation at Sirius’ <em>whimsy</em>).</p><p>After all, Sirius was young and wealthy and the heir to a fortune he could never out-spend. If someone weren’t there to keep him in strict line with the Black image, his mother often said, Sirius would become another one of those degenerate celebrities, wasting their fortunes at clubs and squandering it on people who would take advantage of him and abuse his generosity.</p><p>From what Remus could see, the abuse was <em>internal</em>. Because despite Sirius being the perfect son, despite speaking four languages and playing six instruments and being an incredible asset to their company and an overly qualified successor to their name, his younger brother, Regulus was still <em>highly</em> favored over him. Regulus didn’t have a caretaker like Sirius did, Regulus didn’t have a strict diet or a brutal schedule. Regulus didn’t have to wake at dawn. Regulus had friends. Regulus left the estate whenever he chose, came home at the hour he chose.</p><p>Not to say that Regulus was to blame for these circumstances – after all, Regulus was a perfectly fine young man who was equally as brilliant. But he hadn’t been <em>pushed</em> to learn four languages or play six instruments. Instead, he’d been given time to spend with people who weren’t related to him, people who weren’t paid to be near him. After his tutoring for secondary school was completed, Regulus took off to roam across Europe and Asia, for the foreseeable future, while Sirius had been put to work immediately. No gift, no ceremony, no celebration.</p><p>Sometimes, when Sirius received a postcard from Regulus, his lips would tighten into a thin line and his eyes would grow heavy and dark. For that brief moment, he would look up at Remus, and Remus would see the weight of exhaustion in his face. On those days, Remus would sneak a half-empty bottle of whiskey into Sirius’ bedroom and they’d drink until Sirius fell asleep.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I woke up with my head in the clouds, </em>
</p><p>
  <em>asleep with you on my mind.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I guess I need to figure this out </em>
</p><p>
  <em>before I see you tonight.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Today was no different than any other working day. With his silent steps, Remus entered Sirius’ bedroom just as the sun was beginning to rise, though it would not enter Sirius’ dark and dungeonesque bedroom until Remus drew the curtains. Which he did. Every morning.</p><p>“Good morning, sir.” Remus spoke in a low tone, practiced in the art of drawing Sirius from sleep as gently as possible, his voice trained to caress Sirius into consciousness.</p><p>For one, stolen moment, every morning, just as the curtains were split, he allowed himself a backward glance at Sirius’ still-sleeping form to appreciate Sirius in his natural, unpolished state. The dark hair always precisely pinned back into a tight bun fell loose around his shoulders and over his pillowcase. His slender, sculpted frame so often hid underneath layers of expensive fabric stretched lithe and careless, half-exposed by disheveled turquoise sheets.</p><p>Apparently, today <em>was</em> different. Because when Remus looked back to steal that precious moment of appreciation, Sirius was already looking back at him. At the tired smile on Sirius’ lips and the shining silver of his eyes squinting in the new sun, Remus drew in a short, silent breath.</p><p>“You do this every morning, you know,” Sirius said, his voice deep with slumber and Remus busied his hands with tying back the curtains to hide his fluster.</p><p>“Do what, sir?” he asked, wondering if the tremble in his voice was audible.</p><p>“Call me sir, <em>Remus</em>,” Sirius emphasized the use of his first name to remind him of who he was with, to remind him that they were <em>friends</em>. Or, at least, they could’ve been in another life.</p><p>“I call you sir in front of Lady Walburga,” Remus argued with a slight smile as he moved around the room, drawing the curtains at every window, much to Sirius’ discontent.</p><p>“Only because you have to,” Sirius grumbled before a yawn, rubbing his eyes furiously.</p><p>“Yes, and I also <em>have to</em> call you sir to keep things professional between us,” Remus said, a hint of expectation in his voice, hoping Sirius would argue the point he was trying to make.</p><p>“Professional?” Sirius scoffed as Remus smiled in his secret victory. “You and I do things together that are <em>very</em> unprofessional,” he said, cocking an arrogant eyebrow while Remus tried not to read into that statement too much (failing pathetically), instead focusing on pulling an ensemble of Sirius’ clothes from his closet and setting them onto the end of his bed.</p><p>“You make it sound unsavory,” Remus said, allowing himself a soft laugh as he moved to Sirius’ bedside table, gathering the clothes that Sirius had tossed onto it, uncovering Sirius’ thick, pantos eyeglasses in the rubble – black on the top, tortoiseshell round the bottom.</p><p>“I’ve no doubt my mother would consider it unsavory,” Sirius replied with a snort as Remus held the glasses out for him to take and Sirius refused to look down at them. “You <em>were</em> getting drunk with me on the balcony last night, if you recall. And drinking my father’s most expensive bourbon, I might add.” With a phony sigh of bother, Remus slipped the glasses over Sirius’ ears for him, ignoring the twitch at the corner of Sirius’ mouth that would’ve bloomed into a smile, if he’d let it. “I’m only wondering if you’re going to sneak over again tonight.”</p><p>A flurry of emotions crested within Remus’ chest, threatening to suffocate him if they encroached into his throat any further, but he suffered it all silently, with a few, rapid blinks. This was the other thing that Sirius didn’t know, only one of two. Given the choice between this secret and his feelings for Sirius, he would gladly tell Sirius he was in love with him over this.</p><p>Mostly because <em>that</em> had the minuscule chance of working out in his favor. <em>This</em> … there was no benefit to Sirius (or anyone) knowing this truth. In fact, this was half of the reason he hadn’t given Sirius any <em>real</em> indication of his feelings for him. Even more than the difference in their class, if Sirius knew this truth, he would never look at Remus the same way ever again.</p><p>And that was only if he believed him. Granted, he had plenty of evidence to believe it, with the unnumbered scars that peppered Remus’ skin (which Sirius had only ever seen maybe a quarter of) and the fatigue that worsened once every month, but Remus himself wouldn’t have believed it if it weren’t happening to <em>him</em>. If he were lucky, he would explain it, Sirius would laugh it off, and it would never come up again. No, if he were lucky at all, he would never have to explain it in the first place. Remus could just keep dodging. Like he had always done.</p><p>“My life doesn’t revolve around you, <em>sir</em>,” Remus intentionally avoided the use of Sirius’ name, just to antagonize him, but playfully to act as a distraction from the question at hand.</p><p>“Oh, I’m sorry,” Sirius shot back with a grin. “Aren’t you my caretaker?”</p><p>“Only until 6 o’clock in the evening,” Remus smirked, braving a wink and leaning in, despite the mound of Sirius’ laundry in his arms. “After that, I’m whatever you want me to be.”</p><p>Remus pretended that the pink morning light filtering in through the window behind him was a blush on Sirius’ cheeks and he pretended that the careless way Sirius snaked his fingers up Remus’ forearm was focused with intent, even though Sirius’ touch rarely carried purpose.</p><p>“Then tonight, I want you to come over and get shit-faced with me.” His grip on Remus’ arm tightened and Remus wasn’t sure if Sirius was trying to pull him in or empty his hands.</p><p>“The idea is tempting, but I’m <em>busy</em>, Sirius,” Remus insisted, trying to pull away to emphasize his point, and Sirius let him go, but not without continuing his argument.</p><p>“Doing <em>what</em>?” he growled before his eyes grew comically wide. “Do you have a <em>date</em>?”</p><p>Remus rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s it. Being a butler is very sexy, you know.” That cocky eyebrow rose again as Sirius leaned back, settling his hands behind his head to watch Remus.</p><p>“Oh, I’m <em>quite</em> aware,” he grinned devilishly, silver eyes shining behind his frames.</p><p>“If this were a normal job, I’d report you for sexual harassment,” Remus joked, but he intentionally bent over to pick up more of Sirius’ dirty clothes, not ignoring the slight tilt of Sirius’ head or the twitch of his already spiked eyebrow. It was all part of Sirius’ favourite game.</p><p>“If I were <em>actually</em> your boss, which I’m not, <em>because we’re friends, Remus</em>,” Sirius said with extreme emphasis, “I wouldn’t ogle you the way I do.” He shrugged indifferently, like he hadn’t just admitted something that would’ve been incriminating coming from any other mouth.</p><p>“No, you’d move straight into unwanted physical contact.” Remus shot him a glance, expecting to see the next comment ready on Sirius’ tongue, for this was the full extent of their relationship, baiting and berating each other with wit and sarcasm and innuendo. Their <em>game</em>.</p><p>But there was no wit in Sirius’ expression. “<em>Unwanted</em>,” he repeated softly, leaning forward, and lowering his glasses to the tip of his nose. “Remus, if I’m ever too forward …”</p><p><em>Shit</em>. He’d walked himself into an impossible situation. If he admitted that Sirius <em>wasn’t</em> being too forward, then that would be the same as admitting that he liked Sirius flirting with him and touching him and ogling him. But if he stated that Sirius <em>was</em> being too forward, that Sirius touched him too much, then Sirius would stop completely. He didn’t <em>ever</em> want Sirius to stop.</p><p>“Sirius, you’re saying this to someone who watches you dress every morning,” Remus deadpanned, injecting as much sarcasm into his tone as he possibly could, holding his breath. </p><p>“That’s not true,” Sirius remarked with a grin. “Sometimes you <em>help</em> me dress.” Remus let the nervous breath out quite slowly, so Sirius would never know he’d been holding it at all.</p><p>“Speaking of which, <em>please</em> get up, or your father will have my head for letting you arrive late to your meeting.” With a dramatic stretch and a satisfied moan that left a residual heat at the base of Remus’ throat, Sirius rolled to the edge of his mattress, throwing back the sheets.</p><p>“Can’t we just play hooky again?” Sirius grumbled as Remus tossed the dirty laundry into a hamper. “You can pretend like you spent all day looking for me, just like last time.”</p><p>“I think they’re going to start catching onto us if we do it too often,” Remus said with a sideward glance at Sirius, as he picked up Sirius’ trousers that he’d laid out on the end of the mattress, moving to stand in front of Sirius. “Which means you’re stuck with them for today.”</p><p>“I’d rather be stuck with <em>you</em>,” he sighed loudly, taking the trousers that Remus held out in front of him. The annoyance in his gaze slipped out quickly, however, replaced by mischief and frivolity. “Let’s drag out our time together until then. We’ll tell my father I’m hungover.”</p><p>“Sirius,” Remus laughed softly. “That is <em>not</em> a good plan. At all. They’re going to think –”</p><p>“Let them think.” Sirius waved his hand. “I’ll never live up to their standards anyway.” A muted sigh slipped from his lips, but he covered it up with an overcompensating grin.</p><p>And Remus suddenly realized how right he was. Nothing Sirius did would ever be good enough for them, so why let him kill himself for their approval? Why sacrifice time that Sirius would rather spend with <em>him</em> in favor of spending time in meetings and on the phone and doing mountains of work that ultimately wouldn’t lead to any personal achievement?</p><p>“I’ll make a deal with you,” Remus bargained, holding out his hand for Sirius to take, which Sirius looked at curiously for a tick. “Get dressed, go to the meeting with your father.”</p><p>Another groan from Sirius’ throat. “Reeemuuuus,” he vocalized in disappointment, though he still did take Remus’ hand and let Remus pull him to his feet. Once he was standing, Remus retrieved his shirt and tie from the end of the bed, allowing Sirius a moment of minimal privacy to step into his trousers, though Remus wondered if he should’ve stayed to steady him.</p><p>“Halfway through the meeting, I’ll come in to let you know you have a phone call,” Remus continued, ignoring Sirius’ theatrics as he coaxed Sirius into the dress shirt that Remus had steamed and ironed for him the night before, just before they’d gone off to drink together.</p><p>“Wait, <em>really</em>?” Sirius asked, the pitch of his voice increased in boyish excitement, buttoning the top few buttons of his shirt as Remus started buttoning from the bottom hem. He was fervently ignoring the fact that Sirius hadn’t fastened his trousers yet, just under his fingers.</p><p>“We have to make it believable,” Remus insisted as their hands met at the middle button, which Sirius began to fasten himself, but Remus shooed him away to do it for him. “You’ll go to your office to take the call. Stay there for a few minutes and then meet me in the back garden.”</p><p>“Ooh, an illicit tryst, I love this plan,” Sirius gushed, smiling brightly. With a twist of his wrist, Remus looped the emerald tie around Sirius’ throat and Sirius craned to give him space.</p><p>“We can spend the day however you want,” Remus said with a smile that extended much deeper than the one he allowed to show on his face. “<em>Sir</em>,” he added, to draw Sirius’ attention.</p><p>And it was quickly drawn. “You know, sometimes the way you say that …” His voice trailed off, but the attention of his gaze sharpened as it traveled over Remus’ features, dancing from the scar across the bride of his nose, decorated with auburn freckles, to the notch carved out of his left eyebrow, to the two parallel scars that crossed the hill of his right cheekbone.</p><p>Remus left it unsaid for now. “Tuck in your shirt, Sirius. This won’t work if you’re late.”</p><p>“You could tuck it in <em>for</em> me,” Sirius offered with a cartoonishly wide smile.</p><p>“What was that you said about being too forward?” Remus grinned, a question in the rise of the eyebrow interrupted by a scar, and Sirius mirrored the expression intrinsically.</p><p>“If you weren’t so good at playing this game with me, I’d be more subtle about it,” Sirius remarked, a roll of his eyes and a roll of his tongue along his back teeth as he lifted the shirt to expose a sliver of his abdomen and the still-unfastened waist of his trousers. In his negligence, Remus foolishly glanced downward to see Sirius adjust himself quite deliberately.</p><p>Never before had he been this unguarded. Maybe it was the closeness of the full moon, maybe it was his closeness to Sirius, maybe it was the ever-increasing bravado with which they spoke to one another. Whatever it was left Remus totally exposed, like a nerve ending that wildly responded to any presented stimulation. Like the sharp, unstable breath Remus drew in through his bared teeth at the sight of Sirius before him, half-aroused and palming himself in his hand.  </p><p>It wasn’t a sight he hadn’t seen before, in his many years working in this house, working for this family. Ever since they were teenagers, Remus had been the one to wake Sirius every morning, which often meant catching a glimpse of Sirius’ stimulation as he roused from sleep.</p><p>In all those times, even after Remus had discovered his feelings for Sirius, even after he realized he was excruciatingly attracted to that sight, Remus had been able to keep his every reaction to himself. Not a twitch of his eyebrow, not a hard swallow, not a breath. Until today. </p><p>The sound captured Sirius’ attention <em>immediately</em>. There was nothing he could do to play this off, it had been timed much too precisely to be in regard to anything else. In his panic, his pulse spiked, his breathing escalated, his stomach rolled. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t think.</p><p>An equivalent breath moved out of Sirius’ lips as his pointed silver eyes narrowed under dark, furrowed brows, the darkness of his frames and the thickness of his lashes making his pupils look hollow. With every ounce left of his willpower, Remus cleared his throat as he moved his hands to straighten the collar of Sirius’ shirt, pretending as if it never happened.</p><p>Sirius’ hand had stilled in its place and, while Remus was focusing on keeping his eyes forward, he noticed another stroking movement of Sirius’ fingers, like he was trying to repeat the experiment to achieve the same results. This time, his touch proved to be a bit too intentional, however, because an accidental, indelicate moan slipped through Sirius’ lips at the motion.</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>,” Sirius whispered unexpectedly, his voice high and tight. There was not a shred of control left in Remus’ body at the sound of Sirius saying his name with that volume of breath.</p><p>“Sirius,” Remus responded shortly, biting down onto his bottom lip, the hand that was on Sirius’ collar mindlessly moving to Sirius’ neck underneath it, burying in his long hair. But he forced himself to take a step back, and with it, all the sense that had left him. He went dizzy with realization, sickened with guilt and panic. “I’m … that was … you should go to your meeting.”</p><p>Sirius closed the distance that Remus had created between them. “Can we talk about this?” he asked, leaning down to look into Remus’ face, studying him over the tops of his glasses.</p><p>“There’s – there’s nothing to talk about,” Remus stammered, retreating from the room, despite Sirius’ requests for him to stay, and he shut the bedroom door silently behind him.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I’ll hide my favourite scars with a shirt and a tie</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You’ll let your hair fall down while you’re saving my life</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ll leave my bourbon nerves for your body of wine</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If I come over again.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>An hour later, after hiding in the laundry room to break a few things and curse loudly and shout into a pile of freshly-cleaned sheets, Remus returned to keep his promise to Sirius, no matter the awkward tension he had created between them. As he moved to the conference room on the third floor, he wondered if Sirius would even still play along with this charade.</p><p>Outside the door, Remus readied himself for the dozens of eyes that would be on him the moment he peered into the room. One silver pair, in particular. With a quick breath, Remus opened the door and stood in the opening he’d created. At the far end of the table, seated next to his father, Sirius looked up at him. Strangely, Sirius was still wearing his glasses, though he almost constantly wore contacts. His expression was complicated, but relief was still there.</p><p>“Sirius, sir, there is a caller holding for you on your office line,” he spoke with conviction, as he often did when he was telling a lie, for telling lies had become second nature to him, with as many as he had to tell to keep the secret he kept. If only he could lie as well about his feelings.</p><p>“Thank you, Remus.” Sirius was not quite as good at keeping a straight face as Remus was, but Remus was just happy he was still smiling at him. “I’ll be there in just a moment.”</p><p>As he closed the door, he argued with himself about even going to meet Sirius in the garden. Hadn’t he just made it too awkward for Sirius to want to spend time with him? Then again, Sirius hadn’t backed down. But it was what he’d always done. He’d played the game.</p><p>This game had been going on since they were teenagers. It had started the same way <em>this</em> problem had started – with Remus catching a glimpse of Sirius, stimulated. Unlike this morning, however, it wasn’t an autonomous swelling, but a <em>deliberate</em> one, with Sirius’ hand moving eagerly between his raised legs as Remus had entered his room, as always, without knocking.</p><p>A string of profanity had burst from Sirius’ lips as Remus had immediately ducked from the room, not having seen much more than the long lines of Sirius’ naked hip. The next day, Sirius had asked Remus about it, openly and brazenly, and Remus had blushed quite violently.</p><p>Once he found out he could make Remus turn that brilliant shade of pink, he never stopped trying. Eventually, Remus had no choice but to follow suit or risk his feelings being exposed as Sirius finally figured out the real reason <em>why</em> Remus was blushing so robustly.</p><p>In the back of his mind, Remus wondered if he could play this off, make it part of the game, make Sirius believe that Remus had intentionally let that breath out to provoke him. In truth, that was his only option at this point. Because Sirius finding out the truth was <em>not</em> one.</p><p>This couldn’t wait for the garden. Remus had to find Sirius and repair this immediately or he would go out of his mind. If this backfired, if Sirius became uncomfortable with his presence, he would be ruined. What would he do for a living? He didn’t even have a formal education.</p><p>He didn’t pause to knock on the door of Sirius’ office – he moved right in and locked the door behind him, just for now, just to prevent anyone from finding out that Sirius was not actually on a phone call. As he turned, he saw Sirius seated at his desk, his hair pinned back the way it always was, glasses perched on the end of his nose. There was something in Sirius’ face Remus had never seen there before, but it was present in equal quantity to surprise, as Sirius certainly hadn’t been expecting Remus to barge into his office when they were meant to meet in the garden. Sirius’ chest rose sharply and steadily, filling with anticipatory breath.</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>.” He spoke Remus’ name the same way, breathy and loose, and he removed his glasses and set them on the corner of his ebony desk, standing from it with purpose.</p><p>“I don’t think you picked up on it, but that was meant to be in the game,” Remus blurted out all at once and Sirius physically startled at the confession, his breath leaving him.</p><p>“Is that what you’re going with?” Sirius said under his breath, and Remus was <em>sure</em> he wasn’t meant to hear those words. As Sirius let his heavy head fall forward, his hand steadied his weight against the desk before retrieving his glasses, returning them to his nose. “Fine.”</p><p>Remus winced, now so unsure of his decision. “What I mean is …” Sirius interrupted.</p><p>“I’m not going to be able to sneak away today, Remus,” Sirius said with a deep sigh, turning to look out the window behind his desk. “Enjoy your evening off. I hope she’s pretty.”</p><p>Unwilling to leave things as they were, Remus tried arguing again. “Sirius, I don’t –”</p><p>“If you could set out my tuxedo before you go,” Sirius stated with a hollow voice, emptied of all emotion. “My father has just asked me to attend an auction tonight in his stead.”</p><p>Screwing his eyes closed, Remus let out a breath. “Yes, sir.” With practiced silence, Remus backed from the room, fighting the urge to keep trying to fix this. It was beyond repair.</p><p> </p><p>He didn’t know why he went to the garden. Maybe he thought there was still a chance that Sirius would change his mind. Maybe it was to hide while he dealt with the aftermath of what just happened. Had this been a fight? Before, he and Sirius had barely had disagreements.</p><p>There was a stone bench hidden in the middle of the flora, surrounded by the sweet fragrance of white gardenia and wild honeysuckle in bloom. An arch over the bench supported the overhanging vines of purple wisteria and morning glory. As Remus settled heavily on the cool stone, the pain in his chest swelled at the thought of meeting Sirius under these very flowers, the way the vivid colors of the late spring blooms would refract in the pale silver of Sirius’ eyes.</p><p>There was something that Remus didn’t quite understand. Giving Sirius that out, telling him that their tension had been part of the game should’ve presented him with a clean slate. It should’ve removed any doubt that Remus was anything more than his friend. No, his attendant.</p><p>Maybe that was where the problem lied. After all, Sirius often vehemently argued with Remus when Remus referred to himself as anything less than his friend. This split just reminded him of the difference between them, the reason they <em>couldn’t</em> be friends. Not really.</p><p>With his face in his hands and a groan in his throat, Remus let himself fall forward, his forehead resting on his knees. He didn’t care about wrinkling his uniform or mussing his hair (though it hadn’t been combed to begin with) or being seen by Lady Walburga – she never came out to the gardens anyway, unless she was trying to impress someone through their splendor.</p><p>A touch on his shoulder sent a stiffening in his back, but a hope in his heart. As he looked up eagerly, he found the face of his father, contorted in concern. Remus let out a breath.</p><p>“It’s the moon, isn’t it?” Lyall asked, intentionally lowering his voice, eyes darting back and forth to monitor for any unfounded listening ears. Remus just closed his eyes.</p><p>“It must be,” he said under a heavy sigh.</p><p> </p><p>With a nervous clear of his throat, Remus rolled his shoulders to ease the tension in them, though it helped very little, other than to give him the space to pull the tie from around his strained neck. After all this time, after all these moons, he should’ve gotten used to this.</p><p>His fingers shook as he unbuttoned the grey waistcoat and the white Oxford shirt underneath it, taking a few moments to clench his fists to try to get rid of the quivering that stunted his movement. Again, little to no help. He shed the articles, tossing them onto his bed.</p><p>“Ready?” Lyall asked him and Remus replied with a terse nod. Together, they made their way down into the basement. The sun was still beginning to set. They had some time.</p><p>Against the back wall of the basement was a solid sheet of steel that his father had installed for just this purpose. From the top of the wall hung iron shackles, welded and rewelded from all the times that Remus – or the Wolf that lived inside him – had tried to tear them down.</p><p>With his heart still in his throat, Remus sat on the ground in front of the wall, flinching as his back pressed to the cold, solid steel. He indulged himself in rotating his wrists and rubbing his forearms, knowing how sore they would be in the morning. Another nod and he raised his arms.</p><p>Dutifully, but with a pained expression, Lyall fastened the manacles around Remus’ wrists from where they hung suspended in the air. At the familiar sound of the cuffs snapping shut, Remus winced, closing his eyes tightly. This would be a very long moon. Like all the others.</p><p>He and his father sat in silence for quite some time in the windowless basement, waiting for the telltale sign that the sun had set and the moon had begun to rise. Remus concentrated on breathing, just breathing, knowing the pain that loomed ahead, waiting for him.</p><p>Before he was ready, his right shoulder lurched forward, immediately snapping out of place. This was the sign – the first of his bones to crack and break in preparation for the transformation. As always, Remus took the first one silently, stifling the groan in his throat.</p><p>The other shoulder followed quickly, relocating to a place that shouldn’t have been in his forward field of vision. This one, he took with a wince, bracing for what was to follow, steadying himself for the breathtaking pain of his body rearranging itself without his permission.</p><p>At least it was better than it used to be. Now, they had wolfsbane. Well, they had some cheap, black-market knock-off of a legitimate wolfsbane serum, which was all they could afford, but it was better than going through the transformation without it. However, because the wolfsbane wasn’t pure, because it was diluted with inferior remedies, and because the initial transformation was much too metabolically expensive, the serum barely lasted six hours, <em>unless</em> they waited until most of the transformation was over before getting Remus to drink the vial.</p><p>This meant he had to suffer through most of his bones being reorganized, through claws ripping open the skin at his fingernails, through fangs shredding his gums. And while the fangs were coming in, just before the wiry grey fur broke through his skin, that was when Lyall was able to slip him the potion, but he had to move quickly. He’d nearly been bitten more than once.</p><p>It wasn’t a full transformation, but it wasn’t Remus either. It was some unholy amalgamation of both of them – a werewolf using Remus’ voice to speak, but lacking Remus’ empathy and humanity. The entirety of the full moon was a battle for which voice would get to speak. Sometimes, Remus would be too exhausted to fight, and he would lose consciousness until morning. Other times, he could keep the Wolf at bay, but it took considerable resilience.</p><p>When his ribs began cracking, that was when he lost his ability to manage the pain. That was when the screaming started. They’d insulated the basement pretty well with this in mind, but they couldn’t keep the screams from echoing, torturous and chilling. They <em>carried</em>.</p><p>He always tried to stifle them, always tried to silence himself for as long as he could. After all, his mother was upstairs, and he <em>knew</em> listening to these sounds broke her heart. But the splitting of his bone was so sudden and so severe that he quickly gave in. He always screamed.</p><p>The harsh howl of his voice shredded his throat mercilessly and he raised his head to the ceiling to try to let it out as smoothly as possible, like that would make a difference. The claws began breaking through his fingertips, separating the skin widely enough that blood dripped from his dangling hands onto the cement floor underneath him. The fangs would be next.</p><p>Quickly, Lyall held the small vial in his hands and gripped Remus hard by the face, his fingers pressing the skin of Remus’ cheek down into his bottom teeth, to try to prevent Remus from wrenching away from his hold. And he waited. Just when Remus began to feel the tear of his gums as the sharp canines protruded from them, Lyall emptied the vial into Remus’ mouth.</p><p>It was bitter and acidic and vile, but Remus swallowed it before the Wolf’s consciousness roared in to try to expel it from his throat. His father had already retreated to the metal chair against the furthest wall, far enough to be safe, but close enough to monitor him.</p><p>The shackles began to clatter as Remus recognized the fury of the Wolf boiling up in his throat, his arms pulling at the chains without him telling them to do so. In this state, with half of his mind belonging to another being, Remus’ voice had said some terrible things and, if he were actively struggling to regain control, he could remember <em>all</em> of it. Threatening to shred his father’s corpse to ribbons, describing how he would bite into him, imagining the flavor of his blood or how it would feel on his tongue – Remus could recall those with horrifying clarity. Often, he would just let the Wolf take possession, so he could black out. So he could forget.</p><p>The Wolf was clamoring for control, now. Remus could feel the itching in his brain, like a sharpened fingernail pressing into the grey matter and trying to root him out of it. There was a growl in his throat that wasn’t of his own making and a tightening of both arms as they tried to pry the iron chains from the reinforced wall. Remus focused on strengthening his resolve.</p><p>That is, until Sirius Black came barreling down the basement stairs, still in his tuxedo, bowtie untied. Frustrated tears instantly sprung into Remus’ eyes and he felt them roll down his cheeks as a helpless whimper grew in his throat. No, no, no, Sirius wasn’t meant to see this.</p><p>As Sirius’ eyes fell on Remus, they went wide, scattering from the chains around his wrists, to the pooling blood underneath them, to the snarl in Remus’ lips. At first, he moved forward with clenched teeth, as if he intended to free Remus from this entrapment.</p><p>Luckily, Lyall moved in and held him by the shoulders, delicately, and Remus knew he was afraid this could cost him his job, his home, <em>everything</em>. With his back turned, Remus couldn’t make out what his father was saying, but based on the terror he could see in Sirius’ expression, he knew what the content was. <em>Forgive me, Master Sirius. You were never meant to see this.</em></p><p>At first, Lyall tried to guide Sirius back toward the stairs. If nothing else, he knew he couldn’t let anything happen to Master Orion’s son. Surprisingly, Sirius struggled against him, pushing forward and falling to his knees in front of Remus, keeping just enough distance.</p><p>“You should’ve <em>told</em> me,” Sirius said, his voice broken, choked with tears, the excess of which began spilling over his high-arching cheeks. The surprise of it nearly cost Remus control, but he forced himself to bite down on his lip to draw his attention back to the pain.</p><p>“I didn’t want you to see this,” Remus spoke in biting, broken words as he continued to hold the Wolf at bay with every pained breath. “You have to leave. <em>Please</em>, you have to leave.”</p><p>“No,” Sirius replied, resolutely, pulling at the black cloth ribbon that he used to tie up his hair until it all came tumbling down over his face. In his admiration, Remus didn’t notice the movement of Sirius’ hand until it was already against his face, cleaning the blood running down Remus’ chin from where his elongated canine had punctured a hole through his bottom lip.</p><p>The distraction proved to be too much, and the Wolf surged forward, taking Remus with him, and snapping at Sirius’ outstretched hand with a ravenous growl and a sickening crack of Remus’ teeth. Swiftly and smoothly, Sirius pulled back, looking at Remus in immense sorrow.</p><p>“Please, Sirius, <em>go</em>. I can’t hold him back with you here,” Remus begged.</p><p>“I won’t leave you,” Sirius argued defiantly. “Pretend I’m not here if you have to.”</p><p>“You attract too much of my focus,” Remus stated absently, not registering the weight of the statement he just confessed but witnessing the way Sirius’ gaze flicked sharply to his own.</p><p>“Then let him come,” Sirius said, shaking his head. “It isn’t worth this.”</p><p>Remus let out a short breath through his nostrils. “You won’t ever want to look at me again, Sirius. Not once you see <em>his</em> bloodlust on <em>my</em> face. Not once you hear <em>my</em> voice threaten to slice you open.” With an arrogant grin, Sirius reached in and caressed Remus’ cheek. Before the Wolf could even close his teeth, Sirius’ hand was pulled away, a challenge in his eye, and Remus was left with an unwelcome clash of tenderness and violence in his chest that sent him spinning.</p><p>“You see?” Sirius teased. “I move faster than he does.”</p><p>“This isn’t just about whether I’ll <em>bite</em> you, Sirius …” Sirius interrupted.</p><p>“Do you think I don’t <em>know</em> you, Remus Lupin?” Sirius huffed, forcing out a clipped breath to prove his point. “I can tell the difference between you and the monster you’re housing.”</p><p>“I don’t know what he’ll threaten to do to you,” Remus whined.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter,” Sirius said through clenched teeth. “You’re exhausted already. You can’t keep this up all night. Let him have his control for now. And then <em>come back</em> to me.” At the softness of Sirius’ voice and the careful urgency in his tone and the intimacy of his chosen words, Remus’ control spiraled. He could feel the Wolf take over, he could feel his ruthlessness swell.</p><p>For a moment, Remus wrestled to regain it, to overtake him again, especially when he heard the threatening tone in his own voice as the Wolf spoke to the boy he loved.</p><p>“You’re new,” the Wolf stated plainly, and Remus could feel the conceited snarl in his own lip, could feel the draw of his eyes as they moved over Sirius. “Pretty, young thing.”</p><p>With a laugh, Sirius intensified his gaze. “Oh, I like hearing him call me <em>pretty</em>.”  </p><p>“Come close, I’ll say whatever you want,” the Wolf taunted. As he spoke, Remus could feel his strength fading, despite how fervently he fought to stay. He <em>had</em> to look after Sirius.  </p><p>Sirius leaned in, glancing in his peripheral to where Lyall was pretending that he wasn’t trying to eavesdrop on a conversation being held by his Master’s son, even if it was with his <em>own</em> son. To be sure, Sirius lowered his voice. “I do have a request, actually, if you’ll indulge me.”</p><p>“Of <em>course</em>.” Remus’ voice oozed from his lips, drawn by the Wolf. “Anything.”</p><p>“See, I’d ask Remus himself, but after this morning, I’m not sure he’d relent,” Sirius rambled, much to the irritation of the Wolf and the impatience of Remus, clinging to awareness.</p><p>“<em>Tell</em> me,” the Wolf insisted.</p><p>“I’d like to hear him tell me the truth, if <em>you</em> know what it is.” Surprise moved into Remus’ lungs so suddenly that the Wolf breathed it in unintentionally, drawing the shrewd, silver gaze behind dark, round frames with which Remus had grown so familiar, so fond.</p><p>“Only if I can whisper it into your ear, <em>love</em>,” the Wolf hummed deeply, feeling the tension that crested in Remus’ chest and using it for his own will. With a sad smile, Sirius leaned away.</p><p>“Ah. <em>You</em> don’t know either,” he sighed. “Still, what you gave me was …” he took a deep breath, his eyes flicking <em>just once</em> down Remus’ bare waist, “… good in its own way.”</p><p>Realizing he wasn’t going to get to devour the <em>pretty, young thing</em> in front of him, the patience of the Wolf ran out and he lunged at Sirius, gnashing his teeth and growling sharply.</p><p>“I think you <em>want</em> me to sink my teeth into you, you brat,” the Wolf spat, the energy that he spent of Remus’ dwindling reserves proving to have a higher cost than Remus could afford.</p><p>As Remus felt himself begin to fade, he watched Sirius smile, softly at first, but then with a level of hubris that Remus had never witnessed on his face. His dark eyebrow rose high on his face as he spoke. “<em>You</em>, no,” he said, smirking as he then pointed to Remus’ chest. “<em>Him</em>, yes.”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>We can pretend we're wanting different things and then</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We can pretend we'll never end up here, end up here again</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Well after dawn, Remus woke in his bed, his father asleep in the squashy armchair in the corner. As a routine survey, he drew his hands up to his face, turning them over. No new scars this time. Just the usual bruising around his wrists from the shackles. Though his lip <em>was</em> swollen.</p><p>His mind was cloudy, he must’ve blacked out. There was so much that he couldn’t remember from last night. He went over the steps in his mind, over the things he <em>could</em> remember. His father had chained him in, given him the elixir once the transformation had started, and then … Suddenly, Remus went very still. No. Sirius <em>couldn’t</em> have been there.</p><p>Except he <em>was</em>. He’d seen everything, fangs and all. In fact, Remus was almost sure that Sirius had carried on a full conversation with the Wolf inside him, though he couldn’t recall <em>any</em> of what they’d said. It didn’t matter what they’d said – what mattered is that Sirius <em>knew</em>.</p><p> Despite the panic in his chest, Remus was certain that Sirius hadn’t said anything, that Sirius <em>wouldn’t</em> say anything, that Sirius would never betray him that completely, no matter the circumstances, no matter the cause. That wasn’t what scared him. What scared him was Sirius never wanting to see him again, now that he’d met the monster that lived in his skin.</p><p>Silently, he moved from his bed, only moderately sore from the shifting of his skeleton and the adjusting of his organs. It was Saturday, which meant a bit later start than the weekdays, as everyone in the main house would be sleeping in that morning. Still, as Remus dressed, he layered on his uniform, just to be safe. If he were seen in the main estate without it, Lady Walburga would, without a doubt, throw quite a fit and get Remus’ father in trouble.</p><p>In fact, as he thought about it, he wasn’t sure Sirius had seen him without this uniform at all in the last five years. Though they spent a significant amount of time together, even when Remus was technically not working, Remus made sure he was always in uniform. Just in case.</p><p>Just as Remus achingly contorted into his fitted jacket, his father jolted from sleep quite suddenly, as he often did when he fell asleep after a full moon. After seeing Remus looking curiously at him, he eased back into the chair, his hand over his heart as if to calm it.</p><p>“We made it through another one, son,” he sighed contentedly.</p><p>“Thanks to you,” Remus nodded, smiling as he straightened his tie.</p><p>“You’re going to find Master Sirius, aren’t you?” Lyall asked softly and, at first, Remus stood motionless, wondering how much of their relationship his father had deduced.</p><p>“I am,” Remus acknowledged simply.</p><p>“He stayed with you all night, you know.” In surprise, Remus turned to see the calm, tired smile on his father’s face. “He refused to return home until the Wolf had given up.”</p><p>“I didn’t … he didn’t know, I didn’t tell him,” Remus stumbled through a half-explanation.</p><p>“I know, Remus, I know,” Lyall laughed. “He said he was out walking the grounds and heard the screaming. Recognized that it was your voice. He broke down the back door.” When Remus felt his cheeks flush, he turned away, pretending to look for the shoes he’d already put on.</p><p>“I’ll pay for that,” Remus said, trying to sound apologetic instead of pleased.</p><p>“No, Remus,” his father corrected, moving to stand next to him, placing his hand on Remus’ shoulder. “It speaks <em>volumes</em> about you, that he was so concerned about his attendant.”</p><p><em>Attendant</em>. Remus winced at the word. If Sirius didn’t correct him on it so often, he would worry that was all Sirius would ever see him as – an attendant, an employee, a servant.</p><p>“Though, I think the Wolf said some things to him you may want to apologize for.”</p><p>“What kind of things?” Remus fished, but his father shrugged.</p><p>“I didn’t listen in, I was just monitoring to make sure he didn’t get torn apart,” Lyall said just before a yawn slipped through his lips. “Go find him. I’ll be there shortly for breakfast.” With a slight nod, Remus moved through the door and eased stiffly down the staircase.</p><p>As he moved through the garden, he concentrated on the memory of last night, trying desperately to remember some of what Sirius had said, <em>any</em> of what he’d said. He remembered the Wolf being surprised by someone new, someone who wasn’t Remus’ father. </p><p><em>Pretty, young thing</em>, Remus recalled sharply, hearing his own voice echo in his skull in such a darkened tone. And Sirius had responded, <em>‘Oh, I like hearing him call me pretty.’</em></p><p>With the weight of this revelation, Remus slowed his pace. Had Sirius really admitted that? He liked hearing Remus’ voice state that he was <em>pretty</em>? This couldn’t just be attributed to that game Sirius liked to play, because Sirius knew that Remus wasn’t the one playing with him.</p><p>The topic provided him with enough clarity to remember the conversation in full – how the Wolf had taunted Sirius to come close, the way Sirius’ gaze had scanned Remus’ bare skin, how Sirius vaguely admitted he’d like <em>Remus</em>, and not the Wolf, to sink his teeth into him.</p><p>Maybe most importantly, Sirius had asked the Wolf to tell him the truth, the secret that he <em>knew</em> Remus was hiding from him. So, Sirius knew there was <em>something</em>. After all, yesterday morning hadn’t been erased. Obviously, Sirius had been thinking about it all day.</p><p>He entered Sirius’ bedroom the same way he did every morning, but this morning felt so different. The curtains were still drawn open, sunlight showcasing the scattered components of Sirius’ tuxedo strewn across the bedroom floor from where he’d shed it only hours ago.</p><p>As Remus circled around to the head of Sirius’ bed, he smiled at the careless, exhausted way Sirius had evidently thrown himself into bed, his face pressed deeply into the pillow, his hair fallen haphazardly across his face, one foot hanging from the side of the bed.</p><p>Carefully, Remus reached out to brush the hair from Sirius’ face, leaning in to whisper to the sleeping boy. “Thank you, Sirius,” he said in a hushed voice, his touch moving lightly down Sirius’ jaw. Before he could turn, Sirius’ hand was moving up Remus’ arm.</p><p>“I’m still pissed that you didn’t feel like you could <em>tell me</em>,” Sirius mumbled from where his face was smashed into the pillow, his eyes still closed, his voice rough with fatigue.</p><p>“Would you have believed me?” Remus laughed carefully.</p><p>“Fair point,” Sirius grinned, still holding onto Remus’ forearm, his touch shifting. “I did notice, you know. Always busy the night of a full moon but never any other night. Always showing up with new scars the next morning.” He laughed softly. “I just didn’t think …”</p><p>“Nobody in their right mind would think <em>that</em> was the truth,” Remus shrugged.</p><p>“I never would have if I hadn’t seen it for myself,” Sirius whispered, finally opening his eyes. As he let them travel over Remus, they moved to all the places where the Wolf had broken through last night – in the yellowing of Remus’ eyes, the protrusion of fangs, the sharpening of claws. He slipped Remus’ fingers through his own, brushing over Remus’ blunt fingernails.</p><p>“I’m sorry you had to see it at all,” Remus replied with a regretful sigh.</p><p>“I’m not,” Sirius said quickly. “I never would’ve known otherwise.”</p><p>“You were never <em>supposed</em> to know,” Remus argued.</p><p>“You were just going to keep this from me <em>forever</em>?” Sirius snapped, his eyes flicking up to Remus in fury for only a moment before he stifled it. “Well, I suppose it’s not the only thing, is it?” he said with a heavy sigh just before he swallowed, evident by the tightening of his jaw.</p><p>“I’m not …” he started to lie again, to make up some excuse, but there was nothing that Sirius would believe. Nothing except the truth. “<em>That</em> one, I’m keeping from everyone.”</p><p>“I’m almost certain I know what it is, but I can’t afford to be wrong,” Sirius admitted, the composure returning to his voice, but the tension increasing in his jaw. “I asked <em>him</em> to tell me, you know.” For a moment, there was a slight tremble in Sirius’ bottom lip, but he bit it down.</p><p>“I know,” Remus nodded, remembering Sirius whispering to the Wolf.</p><p>“So you remember it?” Sirius asked, slightly surprised.  </p><p>Bravely, Remus took a breath. “I remember you admitting you want me to sink my teeth into you,” he admitted, but Sirius just closed his eyes again, a slight smile creeping over his face.  </p><p>“Are you going to pretend that was in the game, too?” Sirius asked sharply.</p><p>“Fair point,” Remus repeated, warranting a wicked glance from Sirius’ silver gaze as Sirius turned in his place, still holding onto Remus’ hand and tightening to pull Remus closer. Again, Remus’ gaze flittered down Sirius’ exposed waist, but it was slow and deliberate, making sure that Sirius was watching him do it. The sharp breath from Sirius’ lips proved he was.</p><p>“If I asked you to touch me, would you do it?” Sirius wondered on a short breath.</p><p>“Are you asking as my employer?” Remus questioned, surprised at the steadiness in his voice, despite the long-awaited heat in Sirius’ gaze and the insistence in his request.</p><p>“I’m asking as someone who finds himself attracted to you,” Sirius admitted honestly, watching Remus through heavily hooded lids and thick, dark lashes. “I’m asking as someone who noticed the way your breathing quickened when you watched me touch myself yesterday.”</p><p>His breathing quickened again. “You know we can’t do this, Sirius,” he said, but despite the argument in his words, he let his hand move down to Sirius’ chest, over Sirius’ waist. He swallowed hard at the feeling of Sirius’ skin underneath his fingers, skin he had never directly touched with <em>purpose</em> like this. Only the brush of knuckles, only the passing of a palm.</p><p>“Tell me why not,” Sirius demanded, his chest heaving with rationed breath as Remus absently continued to drag his fingers across the wide expanse of Sirius’ bare skin.   </p><p>“It’s messy,” Remus sighed. “The dynamic between us is already too unbalanced. And <em>feelings</em> will only make it worse.” His argument went ignored as his fingers danced over the  waist of Sirius’ black boxer-briefs, leading Sirius to arch his hips just a bit in anticipation.</p><p>“Then we leave feelings out of it,” Sirius bargained. “Purely physical.” For a moment, Remus’ heart sank at the realization that Sirius had <em>no idea</em> how Remus really felt about him, no clue that Remus had been in love with him all this time. At the same time, a physical relationship with Sirius sounded like the culmination of <em>all</em> of his wet dreams. Before Remus could respond, Sirius spoke again. “Because if you don’t touch me right now, I might lose my fucking mind.”</p><p>Leaving his sense behind, Remus directed his touch down, between Sirius’ open legs, following every curve he felt underneath his fingertips. With Sirius’ concealed length in his palm, rigid and warm and thrumming, and Sirius’ voice so close, exhaling and whispering his name, Remus let out a weighted breath as he moved onto the mattress, his touch growing heavy.</p><p>“Is kissing allowed?” Remus asked hopefully, his breathing clipped as he let his lips hover over Sirius’ mouth, panting in shared breath. Just as Remus felt the curve of Sirius’ lips brush against the border of his own, an answer forming in the back of Sirius’ throat, a rapid knock on Sirius’ bedroom door sent Remus scrambling to stand upright and Sirius to cover himself.</p><p>“Come in!” Sirius called, clearing his throat quietly as Remus struggled to even his breath, smoothing any wrinkles that may have developed in his usual pristine uniform. When his father came through the door, Remus found himself unable to look at him. Lyall didn’t seem to notice.</p><p>“Master Sirius,” Lyall said in a timid voice as he closed the door behind him. A nervous glance was shared between the would-be lovers, and Remus tried not to smile at the absolute impatience in Sirius’ gaze. “I can neither apologize nor thank you enough for last night.”</p><p>Again, Sirius cleared his throat. “There is nothing to apologize <em>or</em> thank me for.”</p><p>“I know I have no place to ask this,” Lyall began, glancing over at Remus. And Sirius seemed to understand what went unspoken, easing Lyall’s fears before they were versed.</p><p>“Remus’ secret will be safe with me. I swear it on my life,” Sirius promised. The moment Lyall let his head fall forward in gratitude and relief, Sirius cast a reassuring smile in Remus’ direction, but chased it with a suggestive rise in his brow, looking Remus up and down, <em>fully</em>.</p><p>“We are in your debt, Master Sirius,” Lyall said on an outward breath. “Remus and I will make haste to prepare your favourite breakfast, sir.” Sirius’ smile brightened.</p><p>“Hope’s cinnamon coffee cake?” he asked excitedly, eyes darting to Remus, who grinned.</p><p>“Come, Remus, we should get started,” Lyall motioned for Remus to follow.</p><p>“Em, one … one more moment of Remus’ time, if that’s alright,” Sirius stammered in his effort to convince Lyall to let Remus stay behind. At first, Lyall hesitated, but he nodded.</p><p>“Yes, sir.” He glanced to Remus. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.” As he ducked out of the bedroom, closing the door behind him, Sirius moved to his knees on the mattress so that he rose a little above Remus in height. Quickly, he slipped his hand around the back of Remus’ neck.</p><p>“Kissing is <em>encouraged</em>,” he whispered before pulling Remus’ mouth to his own. It was so much softer, so much warmer, so much deeper than Remus could have anticipated. In his surprise, he let himself moan into Sirius’ mouth, his hands moving to Sirius’ waist. They snaked around Sirius’ hips, tightening to pull Sirius as close as he could get him, while Sirius gently slipped his tongue past Remus’ teeth. Remus inhaled sharply through his nostrils at the feeling of Sirius’ tongue against his own, a sensation he never thought he would get to experience.</p><p>When Sirius pulled away, Remus let himself revel in the afterglow of Sirius’ kiss, his eyelashes fluttering and his chest heaving. “Oh, this was a terrible idea.”</p><p>A soft laugh echoed from Sirius’ throat and Remus opened his eyes to watch it move past the lips that Remus wanted to kiss forever. “Try not to fall in love with me, Remus.”</p><p><em>Too late</em>, Remus nearly voiced, instead opting for sarcasm. “I’d say the same, but considering this was <em>your</em> idea, I think you’re in love with me a little bit already.” He may have chosen his words very specifically, trying to elicit some sort of reaction in Sirius’ expression, but, as ever, Sirius wore austerity like an accessory, maintaining it no matter the circumstance.</p><p>It seemed he opted for sarcasm, as well. “What can I say? Butlers are very sexy, you know.” With a playful roll of his eyes, Remus pushed Sirius away, watching as Sirius fell back onto the mattress, and Remus let his eyes travel unhindered over every inch of Sirius’ exposed skin.</p><p>“I’m never going to get any work done now,” he sighed, leaning in and unsettling Sirius beneath his boxers without a cent of hesitation in his touch. The surprise and longing in Sirius’ breath was nearly enough to make Remus forget about any of his other obligations.</p><p>As he went to pull his hand away, Sirius caught his wrist, arching his hips up into Remus’ palm one last time, much to Remus’ undoing. The silver in Sirius’ eyes was chaotic.</p><p>“I have a feeling that goes for both of us,” he said on an empty breath as Remus let his hand hover over Sirius’ skin for a moment more. With a hard swallow, he turned.</p><p>“See you at breakfast. <em>Sir</em>.” Incitement dripped from his tone as he moved silently from the room, leaving Sirius growling in frustration in his wake.</p><p> </p><p>When Remus set a plate of cinnamon coffee cake in front of Sirius, he let the back of his hand drag over Sirius’ bicep, enjoying the way all the sharp angles in Sirius’ throat changed drastically as he swallowed the breath of anticipation building within it.</p><p>“Thank you, Remus,” Sirius replied, keeping his voice low, though Remus wasn’t sure if it was meant to provoke him or to hide the emotion in his tone that may give him away.</p><p>From behind a plate of egg whites on rye toast, Sirius’ father glared at him as Sirius devoured the sugary breakfast placed in front of him. “You should watch what you eat, son.”</p><p>“I am watching it, right as it goes into my mouth,” Sirius replied blandly, but his eyes behind their lenses caught Remus from across the table as Remus passed behind Master Orion.</p><p>“Keep eating those sweets and see who will want to marry you after they find out how you’ve let yourself go,” his mother snorted, stirring the straw in her liquid diet breakfast shake.</p><p>Sirius smirked. “What you’re saying is I can get out of marriage by eating sweets? That sounds like an ideal arrangement, honestly.” A laugh nearly escaped Remus’ lips. The sound drew Sirius’ gaze only because of the devout attention he was secretly paying to Remus.</p><p>To spite Sirius’ parents and their warped idea of physical perfection, Remus set another large helping of the coffee cake in front of Sirius, this time squeezing Sirius’ elbow from where it rested underneath the edge of the table, outside of his parents’ line of sight.</p><p>“You’d better not keep up this attitude in the meeting with the Malfoys,” Orion threatened, sternly narrowing his eyes in the direction of his eldest son.</p><p>“I won’t be attending that meeting, Father,” Sirius shrugged, casting the most ephemeral glance into Remus’ direction, and Remus wondered if he was correct about the intent behind it.</p><p>His father’s expression soured. “What could <em>possibly</em> be more important than the buy-out of the Malfoy conglomerate?” Boredom splashed over Sirius’ face, but his silver eyes swirled.</p><p>“I’m investing in a new partner.” Pretending to adjust the glasses on his face, Sirius rose a single eyebrow in Remus’ direction. “One that has already proven to be mutually beneficial.”</p><p>“Oh?” The idea of more money perked Orion’s attention. “Tell me about them.”</p><p>Quick with wit, Sirius answered immediately. “They deal mostly in customer service, and from what I’ve seen so far, they’ll leave no need unsatisfied.” As Orion’s attention was drawn to his plate and Walburga’s to her drink, Sirius looked directly at Remus and slid the tip of his tongue over his sharp canine, his silver irises so drawn than his pupils overtook his gaze.  </p><p>“Sounds promising,” Orion agreed without a glance. “Is the CEO meeting you here?”</p><p>“In my office, yes,” Sirius hummed, pulling his bottom lip into his teeth. “I’m going to make sure he’s able to <em>come</em> today.” The air in Remus’ throat caught so suddenly at Sirius’ secretly explicit profession, he found himself choking on it from where he stood behind Orion. </p><p>Orion turned slightly and Remus cleared his throat while Sirius dabbed his face with a cloth napkin to cover his shit-eating grin. “Do take care of that elsewhere,” Orion huffed.</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Remus obeyed, ducking into the kitchen under blushing cheeks. He turned just long enough to watch Sirius crane his neck to get a good look at Remus as he retreated.</p><p> </p><p>It was a terrible, <em>terrible</em> idea. He knew that. It wasn’t as if he could stop himself from falling in love with Sirius – he was already there. He’d been there for a long time. So, it was damn near impossible to turn this down, to turn <em>Sirius</em> down, when he was all Remus wanted.</p><p>Still, with his fingers hovering over the doorknob of Sirius’ office door, Remus knew where this would go. He knew where this would end. Ultimately, Sirius would move on and get married and Remus would have nothing left but heartbreak. If that happened, he couldn’t stay.</p><p>But fuck it all if the risk wasn’t worth it. They had been dancing around this for so long that Remus thought he might fall apart if something didn’t change. Something <em>was</em> changing, for better or for worse, but Remus had to dive in deep to find out which it would be.</p><p>With resolve in his chest, Remus swung open the door only to find Sirius’ office completely empty. A bitter laugh echoed out from his throat as he let his head fall forward. Was this whole thing another one of Sirius’ fleeting acts of capriciousness, fizzled out before it ever started? Had Sirius even meant what he’d said about being attracted to Remus?</p><p>As silently as he could, Remus closed the door with a gut-wrenching click. How foolish he’d been to think that an heir to an incalculable fortune could be interested in his butler? Even if it was meant to be just physical, as he’d said. Sirius was so, <em>so</em> far out of his league.</p><p>With a heavy heart, Remus made his way down the winding hallways toward the service elevator, heading to the garden where he could have an unguarded moment of self-pity. On his way, he passed the conference room, hearing the booming voice of Orion from within it.</p><p>A long blink and a deep sigh later, he lifted his head to find Sirius standing in the hallway before him, looking perplexed, cocking his head to the side as he looked at Remus.</p><p>“I thought you didn’t get my message,” Sirius smiled carefully. “I went looking for you.”</p><p>The hope renewed in Remus’ chest. “I thought maybe you binned the whole idea.”</p><p>“Are you kidding?” Sirius said, taking a few steps forward until he was nearly pressed to Remus’ chest, craning his neck to brush the bridge of his nose underneath Remus’ jaw, the anxious puff of his breath sweeping across Remus’ neck. “You’re all I’ve been thinking about.”</p><p>“In that case, I’m sorry I’m late,” Remus whispered, unable to keep his fingers to himself as they moved to the buttons of Sirius’ pressed, white shirt. “I didn’t want to get caught.”</p><p>“We have to be <em>so</em> careful, if we’re going to do this,” Sirius nodded, even as the pout of his eager lips dusted against the marked contours of the Adam’s apple of Remus’ throat.</p><p>“We’re not being careful <em>now</em>,” Remus reminded him, moving his touch inside of Sirius’ open suit jacket, relishing in the warmth of Sirius underneath his hands.</p><p>“Because I’m that desperate to touch you, Remus Lupin,” Sirius confessed, looping his finger into the tie around Remus’ neck and tugging him forward. Their lips barely pressed together before the doorknob of the conference room rattled, a signal of the meeting’s end.</p><p>“Shit,” Sirius hissed, grabbing Remus by the lapels of his jacket and pulling him to the closest door, which Remus knew led to a closet packed with office supplies. Together, they stumbled inside, and Remus lurched back against a tall stack of cardboard boxes filled with copier paper. The closet was far too small for them both to fit in comfortably, Remus had to sit atop the paper boxes and quickly pull Sirius between his legs, just as Sirius noiselessly pulled the door shut behind him. With Orion’s voice just outside, Sirius’ hand went over Remus’ mouth.</p><p>The voices outside didn’t fade. In fact, it was as if they purposefully congregated <em>right</em> outside the closet door, just to trap the ones they didn’t know were inside it. At first, Remus grew restless – after all, the object of his affection was right in front of him, right between his legs, and he couldn’t do anything for fear of the <em>sound</em> it would make. Or that’s what he thought.</p><p>With his hand still on Remus’ mouth, Sirius pressed in closer, grinding his hips into Remus to give Remus a <em>full</em> impression of his arousal. And Remus was so lucky that Sirius had the foresight to muffle him because he let out a heavy, indecent breath in his astonishment of it.</p><p>“I don’t think I can do this discreetly,” Sirius’ voice trembled into his ear as his hand slipped from Remus’ lips, down to find Remus’ hand in the dark, which he moved up to his face. </p><p>“Sirius,” Remus breathed out, thumbing over Sirius’ lips. His other hand instinctively went to Sirius’ hip, pulling him in closer, feeling the heat press deeply between his legs.</p><p>“I need you to <em>quiet</em> me, Remus,” Sirius said, a taunt in his voice that left a flutter in Remus’ stomach and an ache in his hips. Taking in a trembling breath, Remus let his fingers loosely cover Sirius’ mouth, as Sirius requested, but couldn’t quite bring himself to press down.</p><p>“You want me to …” Remus paused to let out the same breath.</p><p>Sirius finished the thought for him. “Truthfully, I want you to take advantage of me.”</p><p>“This is because you met the Wolf, isn’t it?” Remus smirked and Sirius hummed.</p><p>“Well, sure, he’s got that air of supremacy, but <em>you’re</em> the one that makes it look so good,” he purred deeply. In response, Remus let his hold over Sirius’ mouth tighten a bit, and Sirius let out another stifled, anticipating breath into Remus’ hand that sounded like a moan.</p><p>“Be <em>quiet</em>, Sirius,” Remus ordered, clenching his teeth to push breath into his demand in an effort to make himself sound more daunting. When Sirius replied with a soft whimper, Remus felt his eyebrow rise high, despite the darkness hiding its lascivious intent.</p><p>After all their years spent as master and servant, Remus felt an immense high as he realized that Sirius had spent at least part of that time wanting Remus to <em>conquer</em> him. In the back of his mind, he wondered how long Sirius had been harboring this desire. Maybe his conversation with the Wolf had been the catalyst that showed him he could have it.  </p><p>The hand on Sirius’ hip moved slowly up to Sirius’ hair, yanking at the cloth ribbon that tied it back until he felt strands of Sirius’ hair slip through his fingers. Testing the water of what Sirius wanted from him, Remus knotted a delicate fist into Sirius’ thick hair. And he tightened it a little at a time, until he could feel Sirius’ breath puffing wildly against his palm.</p><p>Carefully, he moved forward until he was perched on the absolute edge of the box that he was seated upon, locking his ankles behind Sirius and pulling him closer. With his fingers still tethered within Sirius’ hair, he leaned in, finding Sirius’ ear with his lips.</p><p>“You only have to be quiet for a little longer. I’ll let you scream later,” he whispered, and that whimper returned to Sirius’ throat, but with <em>insistence</em>, and Sirius arched his hips forward to garner a little more friction. Remus struggled to silence his reaction, his aching breath, and he was mostly successful – it was still there, but it was quiet, and it was hidden in Sirius’ name.</p><p>At the sound of it, Sirius pried Remus’ fingers from over his mouth and leapt forward to claim Remus’ lips in a fitful kiss. The movement of his hips was just as feverish, his hands following the pattern as they immediately unfastened Remus’ trousers. Recognizing the rush of Sirius’ breath, Remus moved the same, until there was significantly less between them.</p><p>With only the fabric of their undergarments separating them, Remus moved his hips forward until he could feel Sirius against him, sweltering and swollen. The moment Sirius thrust his hips, he mirrored that motion with his tongue, leaving Remus to moan in the movement of it.</p><p>Just as Remus tucked his fingers into the elastic waist of Sirius’ boxers, he felt Sirius’ mouth draw away as Sirius went still. Above their hushed breathing, Remus could hear Orion just outside the door. They were talking about Sirius, but it was nothing of importance.</p><p>Absently, as Sirius listened, he let his fingertips drift softly up and down Remus’ length, almost as if his intent was not to further arouse Remus (though he certainly <em>was</em> doing that), but just to <em>touch</em> him. It was affectionate, the way he tenderly, and impulsively, caressed Remus.</p><p>Outside the door, Orion spoke Sirius’ name again. “Speaking of Sirius,” he said, in that booming voice that was many decibels louder than it needed to be, “He should be in his office with another partner. It’s just down the hall. I’m sure he’d be happy to see you, Lucius.” Their voices faded down the hall toward Sirius’ office, and Sirius had never been so still.</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” he whispered helplessly.</p><p>“Go,” Remus insisted, fastening his trousers for him, as he had done a thousand times before, but never, <em>never</em> like this. “I’ll meet you in your office after they leave.”</p><p>“You’re a god, Remus Lupin,” Sirius growled, burying his tongue in Remus’ mouth before Remus had even registered that Sirius’ lips were on his again. “Five minutes and I’m yours again.”</p><p>In a flash, Sirius had opened the door in a flood of blinding light and Remus could see him tying his hair up just before he winked and shut the door behind him, leaving Remus half-disheveled in a closet full of office supplies. But that wasn’t what gave Remus pause.</p><p>“You’re …” he said on a thick swallow, speaking alone in the dark. “ … <em>mine</em>?”</p><p> </p><p>They did meet in Sirius’ office after the businessmen left. In fact, Remus had just unzipped Sirius’ trousers from where he knelt in front of Sirius’ leather chair, half hidden underneath Sirius’ desk with Sirius’ length under his fingertips, when Orion burst into the office, oblivious to the boy under his son’s desk, the boy who had gone frightfully still.</p><p>Some urgent family business matter. It always was. After a quick lie about a phone call that <em>wasn’t</em> holding on the line (so he could fasten his trousers), Sirius followed after his father, leaving Remus in the office alone. After a bit of time, Remus crept away, too.</p><p>Time and time again, they tried. They met in the garden where the gardener nearly discovered them with their tongues in each other’s mouths. They met in the library where Lady Walburga found Sirius leaning totally nonchalantly against the shelves with zero explanation for why his hair was so knotted or why he was so out of breath or why his shirt was half-unbuttoned, while Remus had bolted out into the adjoining room. They met in Sirius’ bedroom where Lyall found Remus half-buried in a pile of laundry on Sirius’ bed, calmly folding his socks, while Sirius tried to hold his breath underneath that pile of laundry, his hand still down Remus’ trousers.</p><p>It never worked. Not once. There was always someone looking for one of them, always something to do, always someone to interrupt that hadn’t already done it. Before this, they could go <em>hours</em> without seeing anyone else. Now, the most alone time they’d had together all day was ten measly minutes, in Sirius’ bedroom, and Remus would’ve moved things along much more quickly if he had thought they weren’t safe from being caught <em>there</em>, of all places.</p><p>Granted, the kissing alone was <em>spectacular</em>. Having Sirius’ hand between his legs, even outside a fabric border, was nothing short of euphoric. But he wanted to feel Sirius’ bare skin against his own. He wanted to hold Sirius in the palm of his hand. He wanted Sirius in his throat.</p><p>By the end of the day, they hadn’t had another moment alone. Dinner had to be prepared and served, the dinnerware had to be cleaned and polished, and before Remus knew it, it was six o’clock in the evening and Lyall was waiting for Remus to walk home together, across the expansive grounds. He cast Sirius a sorrowful glance, trying to relay his nonverbal message.</p><p><em>“We’ll try again tomorrow.”</em> As if he understood, Sirius nodded, nearly imperceptibly.</p><p> </p><p>Remus couldn’t sleep. Even dreams couldn’t entice him. After all, what dream could prove better than the reality he’d lived in today? His reality was Sirius in his hands, Sirius on his lips, Sirius between his legs. There was no dream that could sate his hunger now.</p><p>Sometime after his parents had gone to bed, Remus crept down to the kitchen. He couldn’t see the main house from any window except the one at the back door. Maybe the light would still be on in Sirius’ bedroom. Maybe he would be able to see Sirius’ silhouette illuminated as he stood in front of that bright, open window. Maybe he would signal to Remus.</p><p>None of that happened. Because when Remus pulled back the curtain at the window within the frame of the back door, he was startled to see Sirius standing there, fist raised, as if trying to decide whether to knock. His dark, wavy hair was unpinned, loose around his shoulders, and he was wearing clothes much more casual than what Remus was accustomed to seeing him in – grey joggers and a white T-shirt. As soon as Sirius saw him, he smiled widely, his silver eyes swirling chaotically from behind his half-dark frames, the glass glimmering in the low light.</p><p>“Hi,” he mouthed from the other side of the door, taking a moment to let his eyes travel down Remus’ torso, as he saw Remus without his uniform for what felt like the first time.</p><p>As Remus opened the door, Sirius glanced around the kitchen for only a moment before realizing they were very much alone in the dark kitchen. Without pause, Sirius took Remus by the face and brought their lips together, but it was softer and less frenzied than Remus expected.</p><p>“Mm, hi,” Remus hummed, pulling Sirius further inside and softly closing the door.</p><p>“I couldn’t sleep,” Sirius said, his words buried within his kisses.</p><p>“Me neither.” Without any consideration, Remus took Sirius by the hips and lifted him onto the kitchen counter, spreading his legs so that Remus could settle between them.</p><p>“See, this is what I was talking about,” Sirius laughed, breathless. “You do it so well.”</p><p>“Do what?” Remus asked absently, his hands sliding up the back of Sirius’ shirt.</p><p>“Take control,” Sirius purred, coaxing Remus’ mouth open with his tongue.</p><p>“I’m worried you’re more attracted to the Wolf than you are to me,” Remus huffed playfully, delicately removing Sirius’ glasses and placing them safely onto the countertop.</p><p>Under a rapid spike of his sharp eyebrow, Sirius licked his lips. “You haven’t been paying attention the last few years. You <em>love</em> being in control. That’s why I started the game. To <em>watch</em>.”</p><p>“What?” Remus scoffed, pushing Sirius’ hair over his shoulder so he could plant his lips to the curve of Sirius’ neck, tugging at the collar of his shirt to amplify the space. “No, you started the game so you could fluster me. Which is me being very much <em>not</em> in control.”</p><p>“You’ve got it all backwards,” Sirius exhaled heavily, craning his neck to let Remus’ lips travel over his skin. Watching the way Sirius <em>wanted</em> him was almost too perfect to be real. “Let me remind you of the story.” A laugh pressed out from Remus’ lips against Sirius’ skin.</p><p>“Don’t we have more … urgent things to tend to?” Remus asked, pressing his hips into the space between Sirius’ legs and Sirius pressed right back, holding the back of Remus’ neck.</p><p>“We have all night now, let me savor it,” Sirius said with a quirky smile. “Besides, I also happen to know you love to listen to me talk, but that’s another story for another night.”</p><p>“Get on with it, then,” Remus grinned. “Because the sooner you finish here, the sooner I can finish you upstairs.” With a riotous, voracious expression, Sirius swallowed hard.</p><p>“Right.” While Remus continued to kiss every inch of skin available to him, Sirius deliberately lowered his voice. “We started the game after you caught me masturbating.”</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” Remus mumbled, unable to stop himself from latching his teeth around the soft skin of Sirius’ throat just underneath his ear. His grip on Sirius tightened, the press of his hips into Sirius’ deepened, the pace of his breathing quickened. “Jesus, the way you <em>say</em> that …”</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>,” Sirius breathed out, distracted only for a moment. “At first, yes, I noticed the way you blushed when I asked you about it and I absolutely <em>had</em> to see that again, so I kept pressing, I kept saying things that I hoped would cause it. You were pink for a <em>week</em>.”</p><p>“I was so mad at you then,” Remus laughed, his breath puffing out against Sirius’ skin, but he buried those breaths back into his lips with every kiss. “I knew it was intentional.”</p><p>“Which is why, at some point, you started saying things back, to get back at me,” Sirius continued, angling his position on the counter so Remus had a bit more leverage against him, his hands still underneath Sirius’ shirt, still holding Sirius steady as he arched up into his hips.</p><p>“Now I know you were training me to talk dirty to you,” Remus said, an involuntary smile leaving him to press his bared teeth against Sirius’ throat. Sirius’ fingers went into his hair.</p><p>“You picked it up quick,” Sirius sighed contentedly. “What were we, nineteen?”</p><p>“You had just turned nineteen, I hadn’t yet,” Remus recalled fondly.</p><p>“The very first obscene thing you said to me, I still remember. I’d said something about letting you watch the next time. Do you remember what you said back to me?” Before he responded, Remus pulled at the hem of Sirius’ T-shirt, slipping it over his head in a cascade of dark hair and surprised breaths. As he tossed the shirt onto the counter, Remus’ hands immediately returned to Sirius’ skin, his tongue returning to Sirius’ mouth, deeper than ever.</p><p>On the next breath, Remus spoke. “Why watch, when I can do it <em>for</em> you?”</p><p>“Oh, <em>God</em>, Remus,” Sirius moaned into Remus’ mouth, leaving behind the taste of nicotine. “When you said that,” Sirius said, his voice trembling with need, “I absolutely forgot that I’d been teasing you, that I’d been saying things <em>just</em> as filthy. I thought you <em>meant</em> it. And there was a moment, just one, when you looked at me like you wanted to tear me apart.”</p><p>“That’s just it, Sirius, I <em>did</em>,” Remus confessed, feeling a surge of desperation sweeping through him and settling into his hips as he rocked them into Sirius. “That wasn’t control. That was <em>surrender</em>. If you had made any inclination that I could have taken you, I <em>would</em> have.”</p><p>“And <em>that’s</em> what I saw every time we played that game,” Sirius emphasized. “It was just a little each time, but I could see that craving in your eyes, that challenge in the twitch of your eyebrow. Like you wanted to pin me down and devour me whole.” He exhaled sharply.</p><p>“That’s exactly what I wanted, that’s what I’ve <em>always</em> wanted,” Remus growled, winding his fingers into Sirius’ hair and pulling back until Sirius was taut underneath him.</p><p>“Then <em>why</em> have we wasted all this time?” Sirius groaned, craning back as far as he could go without letting Remus’ hips draw too far away from his own. In response, Remus moved back up to Sirius’ face, showing just how fully he could devour him, his tongue in Sirius’ mouth.</p><p>“I’m not wasting a second more,” Remus panted, drawing Sirius so far forward that Sirius was balanced on his hips, their lips still together as often as able. “I’m taking you to bed. <em>Now</em>.”</p><p>“<em>God</em>, yes,” Sirius whined, locking his ankles behind Remus’ back. Before Remus could lift Sirius from the countertop, the kitchen flooded with light, leaving them squinting against it.</p><p>“Remus, what –” It was his father’s voice. And the son of his father’s employer was sitting on his kitchen countertop, half-naked, with Remus between his legs, still kissing him.</p><p>Immediately, they pulled apart. Sirius put his shirt back on, his glasses back on, and they were all silent for a long time. There was no explaining this away. It was <em>blatant</em>.</p><p>“Da, listen,” Remus started to say, under his breath, but Lyall interrupted him.</p><p>“How long has this been going on?” he asked, his voice even and calm.</p><p>“Today only, sir,” Sirius spoke for Remus, who was actively trying not to vomit.</p><p>“Does anyone else know?” Remus closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at his father.</p><p>“No, sir,” Sirius replied, his voice shaking and nervous. Again, they fell into silence, and Remus knew what was going to happen. His father was concocting ways to hide this.</p><p>“This cannot continue,” Lyall said softly as Remus buried his face in his hands. Of course, he was right. If Sirius’ parents ever found out, the Lupins would be dismissed, they would be evicted. And what would happen to Sirius? Punished? Disowned? Banished from his home?</p><p>“I respectfully disagree, sir,” Sirius said quickly, and Remus looked up in a flash, but Sirius wasn’t looking at Remus. Without shame, he was holding Lyall’s gaze resolutely.</p><p>“If your father finds out I’ve allowed this to happen in my home …” Lyall stated, the fear evident on his face. This life was all they’d ever known. There wasn’t a back-up plan.</p><p>“He will <em>never</em> find out. Remus and I can still be –” Lyall interjected.</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” he said in a stern voice. “I beg of you, Master Sirius. Stop this. Please. Eventually, you <em>will</em> get caught and <em>we</em> will bear the brunt of the consequences.” Finally, Sirius looked over at Remus and the expression on his face spoke anthologies. Lyall was right. They had to stop.</p><p>“I understand,” Sirius recanted as he finally pushed himself from the counter. “Sir, Remus was only acting as I had ordered him, he had no active part in the making of this decision.”</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus breathed out in surprise, while Sirius shot him a warning glance.</p><p>“If my father is not to know about this, I ask that Remus remain as my attendant, though I promise that I will not abuse that privilege again, as I have this evening.” As Sirius spoke, the temperance of his expression returned. It was like watching him conduct a business meeting.</p><p>“I can agree to that. But the two of you are not to be alone together again,” Lyall said plainly through a stern clenching of his jaw. With a long blink, Sirius nodded.</p><p>“Then we have a bargain,” Sirius agreed. “I’m sorry to have woken you. I swear it won’t happen again.” He turned to Remus, the strictness of his expression washing out. “Remus, I’m sorry to have taken advantage of my position of authority.” As he spoke, Remus could see the quivering of his lip, the softening of his eyes. “I hope I haven’t … wasted much of your time.”</p><p>At that, his eyes narrowed in Remus’ direction, and Remus understood. They had already wasted so much time. How could they ever deny themselves by wasting more? Years they’d spent dancing around each other instead of <em>with</em> each other, years they would never get back.</p><p>Still, he knew his father was also right. This could cost them everything if it were ever discovered. Of course Sirius was worth it, but was <em>Remus</em>? After all, Sirius had told him, this was purely physical. No feelings involved. Realistically, how long could that last anyway?</p><p>As Sirius closed the back door behind him, Remus was left alone in a deafening silence with his father. Would the lecture come now, or would he wait until morning? Would he really let Remus continue to be Sirius’ caretaker after this? Was he upset that Remus was with a <em>boy</em>?</p><p>An unexpected question came from his father’s lips. “You love him, don’t you?” A breath of surprise drew into Remus’ lungs, and he let it out slowly. It was broken, clipped.</p><p>“I have for a long time,” Remus admitted softly, tears filling his vision. Not a single second passed before Lyall moved across the room and encompassed Remus in an embrace.</p><p>“I’m so sorry, Remus.” Lyall’s voice was thick with regret. “You know why I had to –”</p><p>“I know, Da,” Remus nodded, tears rolling from his cheeks and onto his father’s shoulders. As Lyall pulled back, Remus sniffled, rubbing the back of his hand over his face.</p><p>His father was smiling sadly. “I thought there might’ve been something there once he broke down my back door when he thought you were in trouble.” Remus furrowed his brow.</p><p>“No, there’s … he doesn’t <em>know</em>, Da. He doesn’t love me like that,” he sighed.</p><p>A strange look crossed over Lyall’s face and he opened his mouth to speak, but he closed it again just as quickly. “Do you think you can still look after him now? Will it be too difficult?”</p><p>“I’ve done it for <em>years.</em> I’ve got practice suppressing my feelings for Sirius,” Remus said with an irritated laugh. After all this time, after they’d finally figured it out, after they had spent the last several years hinting at each other and they couldn’t even have it. How miserable.</p><p>“You could’ve told me,” Lyall said, still holding Remus by the shoulders. “I didn’t even know you … didn’t like girls,” he said delicately, looking unsure if he phrased it correctly. Though he hadn’t been exactly correct in that analysis, Remus thought it best not to press <em>that</em> issue.</p><p>“You and I had a lot more to worry about than my romantic endeavors,” Remus chuckled, clapping a hand on his father’s hand, still on his shoulder. “I didn’t think it was that important.”</p><p>Lyall gave him a look. “You snuck him into the house. It <em>was</em> important.”</p><p>“I just meant I didn’t think it would ever matter,” Remus shrugged, heading toward the stairs. “I never realistically thought it would happen. You would’ve worried for nothing.”</p><p>“Oh, right,” Lyall said with a playful laugh. “Now at least I’m worried for <em>something</em>.” At the top of the stairs, Remus turned toward his bedroom door with a sad smile on his face.</p><p>“No,” he said, stifling the hurt in his voice. “It’s back to being nothing again.”</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>,” Lyall said under a heavy sigh.</p><p>“Get some sleep, Da,” Remus said, kissing the top of his father’s head. “I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll be on my best behavior tomorrow, I swear. Not another toe out of line.”</p><p>“You make me sound like Orion,” Lyall grumbled, making a disgusted face before pulling Remus into another hug. “It’ll get better, son. I promise it will.” With a forced smile, Remus gave his father a strong pat on the back before retreating into the emptiness of his bedroom, closing the door behind him. In the dark, Remus sat on the edge of his bed. He only cried for a moment.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. I Know That We're Giving In</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Since I FORGOT to put this on the first chapter - the song I've used for inspiration here is Pretend by Paper Route, which you can listen to <a href="https://youtu.be/prCem93Bp1w/">here!</a></p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You found out I was broken at heart</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And you read me Audre Lorde</em>
</p><p>
  <em>When each word from your lips made a mark</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I didn't care anymore</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Sundays were short days for the staff in the Black mansion. The day started later and ended earlier than any other day of the week. If Remus had still been trying to sneak away to spend time with Sirius, that time constraint would’ve been a burden. Now that he was being monitored, now that he was going to be actively avoiding Sirius, it would be a blessing.</p><p>Because Sirius would tell him it didn’t matter that Remus’ father knew about them. He would say they had wasted too much time not sleeping together. He would say they would find ways around it, between it, underneath it, above it, whatever it took to be together.</p><p>But they wouldn’t even <em>be</em> together. Not really. And Remus knew that. It was a nice idea, sex with no strings attached, but it wouldn’t work for Remus. It had never been an option. There were far too many strings for Remus. A string for every moment he’d loved Sirius Black. Those moments were endless, fathomless, and so were the strings that bound them to Remus’ heart.</p><p>Together, his father had gone with him to wake Sirius in the morning. Apparently, Sirius had expected this, because he slept with more clothes on than he usually did (since he usually only slept in his boxers, if <em>anything</em>). The look on Sirius’ face was tight and withdrawn. Remus and his father left the room without speaking to Sirius, and Sirius hadn’t spoken in return.</p><p>Breakfast felt tense, but Master Orion and Lady Walburga said nothing of it, if they noticed it at all. More than once, Remus caught Sirius glance in his direction, but his gaze never lingered for more than a moment, for fear that it would be noticed by Remus’ father.</p><p>Around mid-morning, there was a small amount of time in which Lyall was not in direct view of Remus, while he answered a bellow from Master Orion’s office down the hall. In that limited amount of time, Sirius took Remus by the wrist and led him to the darkened library.</p><p>“Can we talk about this?” he asked again, the context nearly identical to the first time. His silver eyes were ringed with red from lack of sleep, darker still behind his dark frames.</p><p>“We can, but it won’t change anything,” Remus said, stone-faced and iron-willed. In the time since last night, Remus had come to the decision that his father <em>was</em> right. This couldn’t happen. It wouldn’t end well, and Remus had known it since the beginning.</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>,” Sirius pressed, in more ways than one, stepping so close to Remus that Remus had no choice but to back into the shelves behind him. At the sight of Remus’ physical discouragement, Sirius’ expression clouded. “It was secret before. We can still keep it a secret.”</p><p>“For <em>what</em>, Sirius?” Remus asked, his voice biting. “What are we even risking this <em>for</em>?” At first, Sirius struggled to come up with an answer and Remus understood why. Because satisfying a simple physical urge was not enough reason for Remus to destroy his family’s life. It was not enough reason for Sirius to destroy his <em>own</em> life, and he knew that. They both knew that.  </p><p>“For <em>us</em>,” Sirius said plainly but emphatically. “Are you telling me that yesterday didn’t <em>mean</em> anything to you?” In his frustration, Remus bared his teeth. This was just like Sirius to draw on Remus’ emotions to manipulate Remus to his own will. He did this <em>professionally</em>.</p><p>“That’s <em>not</em> fair,” Remus snarled. “You act like this was my decision.”</p><p>“It’s your decision <em>now</em>, isn’t it?” Sirius hissed, trying to maintain his whisper. “You’re <em>deciding</em> to let our parents dictate our relationship.” With a roll of his eyes, Remus replied.</p><p> “You were just fine letting your father dictate your life <em>yesterday</em>,” Remus huffed.</p><p>“Until it meant I couldn’t have <em>you</em>,” Sirius argued sharply, teeth clenched. For a moment, Remus was caught off-guard at Sirius’ openness, until he realized those words didn’t carry the weight he wished they did. The meaning behind them wasn’t as deep as they sounded.</p><p>“Is that the only reason you want me? Because I’m <em>off-limits</em>?” Remus scoffed, shaking his head and laughing bitterly. “God, just when I think I mean a <em>tiny</em> bit more to you than that …”</p><p>“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” Sirius growled.</p><p>“I think it is, and <em>you</em> know it,” Remus countered, pressing a single, accusatory finger into Sirius’ chest. “Would it make you feel better to just fuck me and be done with it?”</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>.” Sirius’ breath fell from his lips in surprise, his shoulders gone slack as he took a step back. The chaos within his silver eyes swirled and Remus startled as he realized tears were welling within them. “Do you really not know? After all this time?” With a sharp breath, Sirius slipped the round frames from his face and covered his eyes with his fingers, pressing in tightly, as if in an effort to keep the tears from spilling over. They got through anyway.</p><p>When he returned the glasses to his face with a sniffle, he nodded, not even looking up at Remus as he turned to leave. Without telling himself to move, Remus reached out.</p><p>“Sirius, wait,” Remus said, holding onto the minimal excess of Sirius’ fitted sleeve.</p><p>“You were right, Remus,” he said in a hollow voice as he shifted, removing himself from Remus’ hold. “I don’t think this changed anything.” Sirius disappeared around the corner of the library just as Lyall opened the door next to where Remus stood, staring vacant at the space that Sirius had just occupied, the emptiness in Sirius’ voice echoing in his head.</p><p>“Everything alright, son?” Lyall asked, concern in his tone.</p><p>Remus swallowed hard. And he lied. “Everything’s fine.”</p><p> </p><p>It was nearing the end of the day and Remus hadn’t seen Sirius again. Not a single time, in the last four hours. Even when he had started actively looking for him while his father wasn’t paying attention. In his office, in his bedroom, in the kitchen, in the library. Sirius was gone.</p><p>Just before Remus and his father started off home, across the grounds, Remus heard Lady Walburga shrieking from the other room. Apparently, his father hadn’t heard it and continued on out of the back door, while Remus doubled back to listen.</p><p>“That rotten child!” Walburga screamed in a dangerous pitch. “He <em>knew</em> he was supposed to take Bella to that fundraising dinner tonight! He’s doing this just to <em>spite</em> me!”</p><p>“Maybe he’s still getting ready,” Orion stated blandly, indifferently.</p><p>“I have <em>told</em> you!” Her voice somehow grew more shrill. “I have looked in every room in this blasted house! He is not in it!” As it became apparent that Orion was no longer contributing to the conversation, Walburga lowered her voice. “Rotten son, shirking his responsibilities.”</p><p>Remus had heard enough – Sirius <em>was</em> missing. As he hurried to catch up with his father, to avoid the appearance of suspicion, the wheels turned in Remus’ mind. It was possible that Sirius had sneaked off the grounds, but where would he go? Sirius didn’t do anything without purpose – if he spent the effort to sneak away, he would have a destination in mind.</p><p>No, Remus realized, returning to that thought. He’d had it half-right – Sirius didn’t do <em>anything</em> without purpose. And, <em>yes</em>, they’d had a fight, and <em>maybe</em> Sirius didn’t want to speak to him again, but Remus knew Sirius better than that. Sirius didn’t give up that easily.</p><p>Knowing that, knowing Sirius as well as he did, Remus knew that Sirius would position himself in a place that would allow Remus to find him, a place that would allow the two of them to speak openly. Remus’ house was off limits. There was only one place left Sirius could go.</p><p>There was a particular weeping willow on the furthest edge of the property, next to the koi pond that had fallen into neglect after Walburga tired of visiting it. It was, after all, quite a trek from the main house, as the expanse of the grounds covered more than a thousand acres in total. Even the walk from the butler’s quarters was a fair trip to the willow, but Remus made the journey rather often. Any evening that Sirius wasn’t available, Remus went to the willow.</p><p>He’d told Sirius about it many times, how he would go lie underneath the willow with his favourite book while Sirius was off at some soiree with his parents, how he would read until it was too dark to see, how he would sometimes fall asleep with a book on his chest only to wake to a gentle nudge from his father as a signal to come home. Even when they were children, he and Sirius had hidden from each other in the canopy of the elegant, hanging branches.</p><p>Maybe it was the memory that left Remus returning so often, because Sirius himself hadn’t visited that willow in years. Certainly not since becoming the official heir to the Black family name, not since dissolving his own will to satisfy the will of his father.</p><p>As they returned home, Hope was waiting for them at the front door, as always. No matter what the circumstance, Remus still cast the same sideward glance at his father, just to watch the way his face lit up at the sight of his wife. He wondered if <em>he</em> did that with Sirius.</p><p>Before Remus could wonder how much of last night’s situation his father had told her, she wrapped her arms around Remus and let out a soft sigh. So, everything, then.</p><p>“I’m so sorry, darling,” Hope said, squeezing him a little bit tighter.</p><p>“It was a silly dream, Mum,” he replied, letting the heartbreak soak into his voice, despite the fact that he had a very clear plan of going to find Sirius the moment he was able. “I think I’ll go read for a bit. Take my mind off things.” With a sad smile, she nodded as he moved up the stairs into his bedroom, changing out of his uniform as quickly as he could and grabbing one of his favourite books of poetry from his bedside table, a collection of poems by Audre Lorde.</p><p>His parents watched him go and he wondered if his father was making sure he wasn’t trying to sneak back to the main house. If he’d heard the conversation Remus had with Sirius in the library, he wouldn’t be worried. Still, that conversation was <em>why</em> he was going to the willow.</p><p>He’d been needlessly cruel. Maybe it was knowing he could never be with Sirius, not the way he wanted to – because of their parents, because Sirius didn’t love him, because Remus could never <em>tell</em> him that he loved him. Maybe it was intentional to force Sirius to hate him. But the longer the day had gone on after that conversation, the more Remus realized the ache in his chest was only deepening. Even if they couldn’t be <em>together</em>, he couldn’t be without Sirius.</p><p>Just as he expected, as he neared the willow, he saw the shape of Sirius lounging underneath the low-hanging branches, the breeze sometimes sweeping the pointed tips of the leaves across the glasses that compounded the furrow of his dark brow over closed eyes.</p><p>“I don’t know why you even want to see me after what I said to you,” Remus admitted, ducking to move into the fronds, sweeping them out of his path with his forearm.</p><p>“It took me quite some time to convince myself that you didn’t mean it,” Sirius said, not opening his eyes, the angles of his throat sharpening as he swallowed.</p><p>Remus settled next to him. “I was still afraid it was true,” he replied honestly. With an exasperated sigh, Sirius turned his head, looking up at Remus over the tops of his glasses.</p><p>“You thought that’s what I wanted?” Sirius’ voice bordered angry. “To fuck you and be done with it? That I only wanted you because I wasn’t <em>allowed</em> to have you?” With a clipped breath, Remus pushed his fingers through his hair, as he did when he was stressed.</p><p>“Then why <em>do</em> you want me, Sirius?” he barked, and Sirius sat up quickly, immediately taking Remus by the face, a little more tightly than was comfortable.</p><p>“I <em>want</em> you because I’m …” he stopped to let out a breath. “Is it so hard to believe that I’m actually attracted to you as a <em>person</em>? That I wanted you for more than just to get off?”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>, it is,” Remus huffed. “You were the one that said <em>purely physical</em>, remember?”</p><p>“Because, alright, yes, I … God, you’re going to make me say it,” Sirius groaned, letting Remus’ face go so that he could push his fingers into his eye sockets, underneath his glasses.</p><p>“Say it, I want to know,” Remus pushed. In a flash, Sirius pressed the heels of his palms into the soft ground, leaning up into Remus’ face. He pursed his lips tightly, the wrinkling of his nose shifting the glasses higher on his face for a moment, his eyes narrowed slightly.</p><p>“I don’t just want to fuck you and be done with it,” he said, lowering his voice quite intentionally. “I want <em>you</em> to fuck <em>me</em>. Over and over and over, for as long as you’ll have me.”</p><p>A breath moved from Remus’ lips, pink over his cheeks. “Oh.”</p><p>“Because I like spending time with you, and I think I’d like it a lot more if most of that time was spent naked.” The rhythm of his words increased until it reached a feverish pace. “So, maybe when I said purely physical, that was the wrong thing to say, because I guess what I should’ve said was friends with benefits, because you …” The breakneck speed of his speech came to a sudden, crashing halt as he finished. “You <em>do</em> mean quite a bit to me.”</p><p>“Oh,” Remus said again, entirely unsure of how to respond to this unexpected turn, unsure of how to respond to Sirius admitting that Remus <em>meant</em> something to him.</p><p>“But I also understand that you have your family to think of <em>first</em>,” Sirius conceded, moving back to settle against the trunk of the willow. “I wouldn’t want to put them at risk.”</p><p>“Sirius,” Remus whispered as he considered arguing. After all, this was exactly what he wanted. Strings attached and emotions and meaning and a disgusting amount of sex.</p><p>“So,” Sirius said with a deep breath. “I’ve decided I’m not worth all that.”</p><p>Remus laughed a little too loudly. “Don’t be an idiot, of course you are.” There was a tender glance that Sirius cast in his direction, but he continued to drive his point.</p><p>“Nevertheless, we’re starting over,” Sirius nodded emphatically.</p><p>“Starting over?” Remus asked, raising his eyebrow, which caught Sirius’ attention.</p><p>“Yes, which means you can’t raise your sexy little notched eyebrow at me like that anymore,” Sirius grumbled, thumbing the scar at Remus’ brow while Remus laughed. “Because we’re starting <em>over</em>-over. No game, no innuendo, no kissing. Starting over.” As a last resort, just to test Sirius’ will in this latest endeavor, Remus batted his eyelashes just a bit in Sirius’ direction.</p><p>“No <em>kissing</em>?” he whined in a saccharine tone, puckering out his bottom lip a little.</p><p>The initial ache in Sirius’ face dissolved into playful annoyance. “Starting. Over.”</p><p>“Fine,” Remus shrugged, willing to accept going back to their strange definition of normal over the devastation he felt after the library. “Then go home. I’m here to read.”</p><p>“Read what?” Sirius asked, slipping the book from Remus’ fingers and opening to the page that held the bookmark. “You want me to read to you? Friends do that, right?”</p><p>With a smile, Remus settled against the tree. “Sure. Read to me.”</p><p>“Coming together,” Sirius began, his voice taking on that easy and soft quality that it sometimes did when he wasn’t focused on masking it. “It is easier to work after our bodies meet.” There was a weighted pause, and the breath to match, but Sirius pressed on, his voice turning low. “Paper and pen, neither care nor profit, whether we write or not, but as your body moves under my hands, charged and waiting …” another pause, another deep breath, and he glanced over at where Remus was already meeting his gaze. “We cut the leash.”</p><p>“My body writes into your flesh,” Remus spoke from memory, keeping his eyes locked tight to Sirius’ silver gaze, kinetic and vivid, “the poem you make of me.” For several long moments, they stayed mesmerized, shifting forward until Remus could feel the warm puff of Sirius’ breath against his lips, until he could taste the lingering nicotine on Sirius’ tongue.</p><p>Then, with a deep breath of renewed resolve, Sirius moved away, burying his nose back into the inner spine of the book. He laughed nervously. “This is harder than I thought it’d be.”</p><p>“Try another one,” Remus encouraged, pulling at the collar of his shirt to ease the heat pooling at the base of his throat. Just to be safe, he turned a little to minimize the contact.</p><p>As Sirius turned the page, he went quiet. There were no more sounds of pages rustling, he’d stayed on the same page, as if reading to himself and forgetting to read aloud.</p><p>“Share it with the class,” Remus said with a soft laugh.</p><p>Sirius let out a long, slow breath. “Always, in the middle of our bloodiest battles,” he recited, though his voice wavered and snapped, and Remus didn’t have to ask why. More than once, Remus had read through this book. He knew the title of this poem. “You lay down your arms like flowering mines,” Sirius whispered, heaving a sigh. “To conquer me home.”</p><p>Had he chosen that one deliberately? Sure, Remus had asked him to read another, but he could’ve skipped it, he could’ve moved ten pages ahead, he could’ve pretended that the title of this poem hadn’t caught his attention. A title that bore weight. <em>Love, Maybe.</em></p><p>Before Remus could fake ignorance, Sirius stood, handing the book back to Remus, but making sure to hold it by the short edge, to avoid the risk of a touch of fingers. “I’d better get back before my mother calls Scotland Yard.” The laugh from his throat was forced.</p><p>“Good thinking. I should do the same,” Remus agreed, not registering that once he stood, he would be at face level with Sirius, which presented a myriad of terrible problems, all of them starting with the twist of Sirius’ lips and ending with the draw of his mercurial gaze.</p><p>“Starting over,” Sirius said with another stiff laugh, as if reminding himself, and he bared his teeth like it was a smile before pushing through the willow branches, walking away briskly.</p><p>“I hate it already,” Remus sighed to himself as he started the long walk home.</p><p> </p><p>The next morning was only a little better than the one before it. When Remus went to wake Sirius, Lyall still came with him. Sirius had still slept clothed more than normal. But when Remus unfurled the drapes and looked back, Sirius squinted at him, one eye open, smiling.</p><p>“Morning, Remus,” his voice rumbled, letting his eyes travel over Remus for a moment before sitting up and addressing Remus’ father as well. “Good morning, Mr. Lupin.”</p><p>“Good morning, Master Sirius,” Lyall replied kindly, glancing at Remus.</p><p>“Any requests for breakfast, sir?” Remus asked, trying to keep his tone professional, knowing his father was paying very close attention to everything the two said to each other.</p><p>“Oh, I could really go for some Scotch pancakes this morning,” Sirius grinned. As Lyall moved into Sirius’ closet to retrieve a suit for Sirius to wear, Remus found Sirius’ glasses from his bedside table and slid them onto Sirius’ nose. He may have let himself get a little too close, let his hands linger a little too long on Sirius’ face. The subdued smile on Sirius’ lips said enough.</p><p>“Morning, Sirius,” he whispered, and Sirius automatically moved in to kiss him, but the realization struck them together and they drifted apart, just as Lyall emerged from the closet.</p><p>“With strawberries and honey?” he asked with a pleasant smile. Sirius nodded.</p><p>“Sounds wonderful.” But his smile had faded into something strained. Of course, Remus’ father picked up on this change in atmosphere, but said nothing. Remus did the same.</p><p>“Allow us to get started on that right away,” Lyall offered, motioning for Remus to follow him, and Remus made sure not to hesitate. An empty sigh followed them on their way out.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I play my favorite songs when I'm driving you home</em>
</p><p>
  <em>You let your hair fall down when you know we're alone</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It's such a careful dance when your feet have been cold</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The only way to defend</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The tension returned at breakfast. As usual, Orion and Walburga were either immune to it or indifferent to it. Remus’ father, on the other hand, was not. More than once, he cast a cautious glance in Remus’ direction, but Remus kept his eyes at the wall. Away from Sirius.</p><p>“Sirius, I need you to attend a cocktail party this evening at the Malfoy estate,” Orion said suddenly, and Sirius nearly dropped his fork. It clattered loudly against the plate.</p><p>“What, why?” Sirius snapped. “I thought the buy-out was successful?”</p><p>“Nearly,” Orion replied cryptically. “Lucius is intent on keeping his shares of the company, and I refuse to own <em>part</em> of a conglomerate. I need you to convince him to sell them all.”</p><p>“That sounds rather important, shouldn’t you be there yourself?” Sirius asked calmly, though Remus knew he was trying to talk his way out of attending the event.</p><p>“Unfortunately, I’ll be leaving for Paris this morning. Slughorn Pharmaceuticals is changing hands and I’m going to make my bid for it,” he stated, taking a bite of the unflavored oatmeal in his bowl. “Which reminds me, Remus will have to drive you to the Malfoy residence.”</p><p>“<em>Me</em>, sir?” Remus asked in surprise. Orion didn’t even look up at him.</p><p>“Cornelius will accompany me, so <em>you</em> will have to act as chauffeur to Sirius.”</p><p>Lyall interjected immediately. “Sir, I would be happy to drive Master Sirius to his –”</p><p>“No,” Orion interrupted harshly. “When I return, I will be bringing Horace back with me, so I’ll need you to arrange a surprise retirement party for the old codger for tomorrow evening.”</p><p>“Yes, sir,” Lyall obeyed, but he threw several more nervous glances to Remus, while Remus stood absolutely still, pretending he wasn’t formulating a plan in his mind.</p><p> </p><p>To put his father’s mind at ease, Remus avoided Sirius for the rest of the day. Not even a secretive glance, and he was fairly certain that Sirius was doing the same. During the course of the day, Lyall asked very vague questions about his strategy for the party, obviously to gauge Remus’ ability to maintain his professionalism during the course of the evening. Remus answered them all very honestly, pretending not to imagine all the things that could happen.</p><p>Not that they would. They were starting over. Despite all the near misses, Sirius seemed pretty resolute in that decision, and for good reason. If they let it happen once, it would <em>absolutely</em> happen a second time, a third time, an eleventh time, a hundredth time.</p><p>So, Remus promised his father that he would be on his best behavior, and that he would make sure Sirius remained on his best behavior, as well. Ultimately, it was a business meeting (even if it was taking place at a party) and Remus would be <em>working</em>. Nothing romantic.</p><p>Still, when his father went home at 6 o’clock, and Remus went up to Sirius’ bedroom, Remus couldn’t calm the pounding of his heart. They would be alone for most of the evening – the Malfoy estate was well over an hour’s drive from the Black manor. That was enough time for a lot of conversation to happen, a lot of revelations to be made, a lot of choices undone. </p><p>To prevent reiterations of past mistakes, Remus knocked on Sirius’ bedroom door, and Sirius called him in, though he was still half-undressed when Remus entered the room.</p><p>“You don’t have to knock, you know,” Sirius said with a knowing smile.</p><p>“Just trying to circumvent any pitfalls of this whole … starting over business,” Remus replied, rolling his eyes to show how tired he was of saying those words.</p><p>“I don’t know about you, but I pretty much fucking hate the whole damn thing,” Sirius sighed heavily, looping a black leather belt around the waist of the trousers of his worsted-wool suit, the one with the grey-and-black birdseye pattern and the silver lapel chain and the green-speckled tie. The one he wore when he wanted to look like the heir to the fortune that he was.</p><p>“I thought if we pretended to like it, it would get easier,” Remus agreed, settling down onto Sirius’ bed and pretending not to watch him get dressed. Even Sirius noticed him fail.</p><p>“And do you feel like it’s getting easier?” Sirius had his head bowed, buckling the belt, so when he looked up at Remus, it was through dark lashes and unpinned hair in his face.</p><p>Remus let his eyebrow rise, that one with the scar notched out of it, his eyes drifting down Sirius’ exposed torso. “No, it’s getting much harder.” Sirius swallowed.</p><p>“We promised no more innuendo,” he said with a shrewd grin.</p><p>“Shit,” Remus smirked. “Old habits.” That grin remained on Sirius’ face as he dove back into his closet, returning with the top half of the suit he was in the middle of putting on, as well as another – a dark grey wool suit with a textured black tie and a silver lapel chain that matched the one on Sirius’ suit. A furrow deepened in Remus’ brow. “What’s that one for?”</p><p>“<em>This</em> one is for you,” Sirius smiled wildly, biting down on his tongue.</p><p>“Oh no you don’t,” Remus immediately argued, standing from the bed. “I am <em>not</em> going to this party. I’m driving you there and I’m spending the evening in the car by myself.”</p><p>“Reeemuuuus,” Sirius whined throatily. “I’m going to be bored out of my skull in there.”</p><p>“You know I don’t fit in at these sort of things,” Remus continued, pacing around the room, already anxious. “And people are going to be talking to you and I’m going to be left to my own devices, which will mean awkward conversations about politics and weather and the stock market and gross profit margins and I don’t even know what that <em>means</em>, Sirius, I’m –” With a breathy laugh, Sirius strode over to where Remus was nervously stalking the floor. Calmly and tenderly, he took Remus by the face and placed Remus’ forehead against his own.</p><p>“Remus,” he spoke softly. “Of all the people attending that party, you’re the one I will want to spend the most time with. I won’t leave you alone. You’ll wish for it before the night is over,” he smiled, the look in his eyes much more meaningful than an argument about a party.</p><p>“Isn’t this against the rules you set?” The corner of Remus’ mouth turned up slightly.</p><p>“All I said was no kissing. And I’m not kissing you,” Sirius said in a sly tone.</p><p>“Which is a damn shame,” Remus breathed out, his hands instinctively finding Sirius’ waist, still unclothed, and Sirius flinched a bit at Remus’ icy touch, though his smile remained.</p><p>“Come with me to this stupid party and I’ll kiss you,” Sirius bargained. “But just once.”</p><p>“Oh, you’re cruel, Sirius,” Remus groaned, pulling Sirius in closer, putting his lips as close as possible to Sirius’ mouth without breaking any promises. “<em>Ruthlessly</em> cruel.”</p><p>“I’ll make the offer sweeter,” Sirius continued, deliberately nibbling on his lip to draw Remus’ attention. “Come with me tonight and I’ll let you cash in whenever you choose.”</p><p>Remus swallowed the pulse in his throat. “Can I choose to have it now?”</p><p>“Absolutely,” Sirius said, trying to steady his undulating breath. Drawing on that cruelty that he accused Sirius of, Remus pulled away and threw himself down onto Sirius’ bed.</p><p>“Going to this party is the last thing I want to do,” he admitted with a shrug, much to Sirius’ obvious displeasure. “But since kissing you is the <em>first</em> thing, I guess I have no choice.”</p><p>The grin unfurled on Sirius’ lips, pink spreading over his cheeks. “You son of a bitch.”</p><p>“Can I request that kiss at any time?” Remus asked as he started to disrobe, enjoying the devout attention he was receiving from Sirius. He slowed his movements to savor it.</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>,” Sirius breathed out, licking his lips as Remus unbuttoned his vest, his shirt.</p><p>“Even in the middle of the party?” Remus teased, arching out of both. Looking like he hadn’t intended to, Sirius moved much closer, leaning on the bed frame as Remus undressed.</p><p>“Hell, I’ll let Lucius Malfoy <em>watch</em> if that’s what you want.” Sirius’ eyes scattered all over Remus’ bare skin – skin he hadn’t seen since that night he’d met the Wolf. As Remus stood, Sirius’ fingers moved to brush over the scars on Remus’ chest before Remus was ready for the stimulation, leaving him to suck in a deep, aching breath, his lungs swelling with Sirius’ touch.</p><p>“I didn’t know this much touching was allowed,” Remus hummed arrogantly as Sirius’ touch moved down his waist. To make Sirius’ want worse, Remus began unfastening his trousers, taking a moment to adjust himself explicitly, the way Sirius had the morning this all started.</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>,” Sirius exhaled heavily, warning in his voice as his fingers wavered at the edge of the elastic of the only remaining article of clothing on Remus’ skin. Finally, Remus <em>broke</em>.</p><p>“Just touch me, Sirius. I don’t care anymore. I’ll risk it, just <em>touch</em> me, <em>please</em>,” he begged, holding his hand over Sirius’ fingers. As the pressure of Sirius’ touch grew lower, and Remus began to form the letters of his name in the breath he let out, Sirius pulled away violently.</p><p>“We were starting over for a reason, Remus,” Sirius growled, gripping tightly onto the door frame of his closet. “I will <em>not</em> risk losing you.”</p><p>Realization sunk deep into Remus’ gut as the weight of Sirius’ words settled over it. He thought he knew what they were risking – Remus’ job, his family’s employment, Sirius’ status, but this was a blindingly obvious aspect he hadn’t considered yet. If they were found out and the Lupins were dismissed, <em>of course</em> that meant Remus would never see Sirius again.</p><p>“You’re right,” Remus sighed, letting his head fall into his hand.</p><p>“It was my fault,” Sirius’ voice lightened. “I bribed you with a kiss.”</p><p>“Is that deal still on the table?” Remus asked, looking up hopefully. Sirius smiled.</p><p>“I made you a promise,” he smirked. “But we’re going to have to get dressed with our backs turned, because I can’t …” he paused, gesturing to Remus standing in Sirius’ bedroom in only a pair of black boxer-briefs, cradling his fingers in the air, as if he could will Remus’ hips into them. With a groan, he brought his tightened fist to his mouth, biting down on his knuckle. “I can’t stand to look at you like this, knowing that I’m not allowed to keep touching you.”</p><p>Remus blushed <em>vividly</em>. “Right, backs turned, then,” Remus agreed, holding his hands in the air in surrender as he turned around, fumbling with the suit that Sirius had chosen for him.</p><p>As they dressed, Remus allowed himself a couple backward glances. More than once, he caught Sirius doing just the same. Sirius only made it worse by increasing the rise of his brow.</p><p>Once Remus finished, silver tie pin in place with a silver collar chain to match, he turned to see if Sirius needed his help to fasten his cuff links, but Sirius was already completely dressed, standing just behind him. Despite that Remus had seen Sirius in this very suit on many occasions, the repetition of it didn’t leave him with any additional breath in his chest.</p><p>The black Oxford shirt made Sirius’ eyes look darker, the gold tie pin and collar chain complimented the green in his tie, the slender curve of the jacket and matching waistcoat accentuated his sculpted physique. His long, dark hair, usually pinned tight to the back of his head, was tied loosely into a topknot at his crown, shorter pieces falling down in front of his eyes, some of the mid-length strands tucked behind his ears, held in place by the temples of his two-toned glasses, black at the top, tortoiseshell-brown round the bottom.</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus whispered, finally noticing that Sirius’ silver eyes were wide.</p><p>“Funny,” Sirius said on empty lungs, his eyes traveling down to Remus’ feet and up again, achingly slowly, following every thread. “I was just about to say <em>your</em> name like that.”</p><p>“You look incredible,” Remus gushed, fluffing the pocket square at Sirius’ lapel that matched his tie. With a splash of pink on his cheeks, Sirius reached for a white handkerchief with a black border to embellish the empty pocket of Remus’ charcoal grey suit jacket.</p><p>“I don’t know how it’s possible, but I might want to take your clothes off more <em>now</em> than I did when you were nearly naked,” Sirius laughed softly, straightening Remus’ collar.</p><p>“Are we going to survive tonight?” Remus joined into Sirius’ laughter.</p><p>Sirius flashed a wicked grin. “Not a chance in hell.”</p><p> </p><p>The car ride was nothing short of torture. When they left, Remus had done his best to keep their trip strictly professional by making Sirius ride in the backseat of the Rolls Royce, like a <em>real</em> chauffeur would do, but Sirius wasn’t having it. He sat in the front seat.</p><p>There was too much of a division between the front and back seat, Sirius had said as he’d opened the passenger side door, while Remus was thinking there was not quite <em>enough</em> of one in the front seat. There wasn’t even a console between them. Sirius could easily reach over and …</p><p>No, all this separation was of Sirius’ making. He wouldn’t break the contract. If anyone lacked the willpower to keep things professional between them, it was <em>Remus</em>, and at least his hands would be on the wheel. Even then, he thought of all he could do with one hand.</p><p>As Remus struggled to be on his best behavior, as he promised his father he would, the tension in the car was stifling. Even the stereo playing soft French songs in the background wasn’t providing enough of a distraction. All Remus could think about was Sirius biting down on his knuckle as he’d admitted he couldn’t look at Remus at all without wanting to touch him.</p><p>“You’re better at this than I thought you’d be,” Sirius remarked over the crippling silence.</p><p>“I’ve had quite a bit of practice,” Remus laughed, glancing over at Sirius out of the corner of his eye, flustered simply by the way Sirius leaned his head back on the headrest.</p><p>“Really?” Sirius asked in surprise. “I’m surprised Cornelius allowed it.” A furrow drove into Remus’ brow as he opened his mouth to speak before closing it again in the same moment.</p><p>“Wait, what are we talking about?” Remus laughed.</p><p>“Driving the Royce?” Sirius looked at him like he was crazy.</p><p>“Oh!” Remus’ laughter grew louder. “I thought we were talking about …” Remus shut his mouth quickly, realizing he didn’t want to go down this road. “Never mind.”</p><p>“Ohhh no, no, no,” Sirius said, immediately leaning across the seat until he was nearly lying all the way across it. “You can’t look at me the way you did and then not explain why.”</p><p>“You <em>know</em> why,” Remus replied, making sure to lower his voice. Sirius leaned further.</p><p>“But you haven’t had practice at <em>that</em> yet.”</p><p>“No, but I’ve had plenty of practice pretending I didn’t want it.”</p><p>“You might’ve had practice, but you’ve never been <em>good</em> at it,” Sirius grinned with a quick flash of his eyebrows as he leaned back to his side. “I’ve suspected you wanted it for a while.”</p><p>Remus looked over slowly. “Then <em>why</em> did you make me wait this long?”</p><p>“To avoid <em>exactly</em> the situation that we’re in right now,” Sirius sighed loudly.</p><p>“Oh,” Remus said with a sigh of his own, forgetting he couldn’t pull over and take Sirius into the backseat at his whim. “Right.” An uncomfortable tension encased the car again, and Remus tightened his knuckles around the steering wheel, pretending to hum to the song on the radio when, in truth, he didn’t even recognize the French melody from the cassette in the deck.</p><p>“Anyway,” Sirius said, clearing his throat. “What I was saying before you so rudely reminded me of the nature of our relationship <em>was</em> …” he paused dramatically, giving Remus a moment to let an amused huff ricochet from the back of his throat, “Cornelius told me once that this car is very difficult to drive and that’s why he drives my father in the Bentley. But you’re handling it like it’s nothing.” With the innuendo ready on his tongue, Remus sneered as he bit it back and swallowed it. That French song that Remus didn’t know was still playing.</p><p>“My Da used to have a car when I first started to learn how to drive and it was a broken-down piece of shit,” Remus laughed, nostalgia filling his chest. “There was a leak somewhere in the steering rack, so when the hydraulic fluid got too low, it was <em>dreadful</em> to drive.”</p><p>“I have no idea what any of that means, but please keep going. Listening to you talk about cars has me inexplicably turned on.” With a roll of his eyes, and a splash of pink in his cheeks, Remus looked over to see Sirius with his head leaned back on the headrest again, all sharp angles and unkempt hair and bedroom eyes that made Remus forget what he was saying.</p><p>“You’re so overstimulated, you’d get turned on no matter what I talked about,” Remus brushed it off, blushing. “I could talk about gardening and you’d say the same damn thing.”</p><p>“<em>Gardening</em>?” Sirius gasped dramatically. It fell into a moan. “Oh, G<em>od</em>, Remus.”</p><p>“Don’t do that,” Remus begged with a whimpering laugh, growing ever more flush.</p><p>“No, really,” Sirius’ voice immediately leveled, and Remus wished his heart rate could do that trick. “I’m imagining you working on this car in a white T-shirt, covered in grease, with –”</p><p>Remus interrupted with a rise in his brow. “I was only sixteen then, you know.”</p><p>“You act like I wasn’t attracted to you at sixteen,” Sirius rested his elbow on the top of the seat, settling his head into the palm of his hand so he could watch Remus exclusively.</p><p>“You keep saying things that make everything worse, do you realize that?” Remus replied with an exasperated sigh, within which was buried a helpless groan, knuckles gone white.</p><p>“Tell me more about your family. Tell me a story about Hope,” Sirius smiled, pulling his knee onto the bench seat and leaning back against the interior of the door, his head falling softly against the glass of the window, his hand still tucked into his loosely tied hair.</p><p>“You want me to tell you stories from my childhood?” Remus asked, skeptically.</p><p>The brightness of Sirius’ smile dimmed a bit as he took in a careful and stunted breath. “I didn’t have this – learning to drive with my dad in a beat-up car or waking up to the smell of my mum’s homemade cinnamon coffee cake. It’s … this is as close as I’ll get.”</p><p>There was an immediate pain in Remus’ chest at Sirius’ unexpected and vulnerable confession. The only things that rarely slipped from that mask Sirius affixed to his face every morning was innuendo or sarcasm. Recently, it seemed, Remus was exempt from the mask.</p><p>It didn’t make that truth any easier to hear. It still left a gaping hole where the memories of Sirius lived. It made Remus wish he had invited Sirius over to his house as a child, made him wish he had asked his father to teach Sirius to drive, too. Until recently, he couldn’t understand why someone like Sirius would ever spend so much time around someone like Remus. Now, it was agonizingly clear – because being with Remus was the only thing that made him feel normal.</p><p>Despite that pain in his chest, Remus kept a quiet smile on his face. “Mum sings when she bakes. Usually Nat King Cole, he was her favourite. She played <em>Love Is The Thing</em> so often that she wore a groove into the vinyl, and Da spent quite a penny on a replacement for their anniversary last year. Mum cried when she unwrapped it,” Remus said, his voice trailing off as he realized he had gotten carried away, having spoken more words in one breath than the breath allowed.</p><p>When he looked over at Sirius, there was nothing on his face but absolute bliss and contentment. From his place against the door, he pushed himself up, crossing his arms over the top of the bench seat and settling his face on top of them with a smile. “Tell me more.”</p><p> </p><p>The rest of the trip went by quickly, with Remus recanting stories from his childhood and Sirius soaking it up like he would never have the chance to hear them twice. In the hour long trip, Remus had even told Sirius of the story of when he’d been bitten – how they’d been visiting family in Wales, how Remus had been playing hide-and-seek with his cousins in the woods long after their parents had told them to go to bed, how his father had interrupted the gangly, wiry creature with his fangs in Remus’ throat before the beast had a chance to carry Remus away.</p><p>But it wasn’t all somber conversation and painful memories. They also recalled several of the ones they had made together – wading in the koi pond and trying to catch fish with their bare hands, chasing peacocks and finding out they would chase back, hiding from Sirius’ mother when Sirius was supposed to be in his fencing lesson and trying to silence each other’s giggling, listening to rock-and-roll albums in secret on the portable hi-fi that they hid under Sirius’ bed.</p><p>In less time than either of them wanted, they arrived at the Malfoy manor. By the time they made it there, Sirius had shed his suit jacket, the ties were loosened around both their necks, and the waves of Sirius’ hair had overtaken his topknot until it was a disheveled half-bun atop his head (though it was somehow more attractive, so Remus refused to let him fully fix it).</p><p>After they begrudgingly corrected their appearances and smoothed the wrinkles in their suits, the two walked into the party. It took a considerable effort for Remus not to slip his hand into Sirius’ as they walked, as if that were something he was accustomed to doing.</p><p>The amount of people inside was disgusting. They were all dressed to the nines, a sea of monochrome and greyscale with an occasional pop of color – a red dress here, a green tie there, a blue scarf, a yellow feather in a hat. Nervously, Remus adjusted the collar of his pressed shirt.</p><p>And that thing that he’d wanted to do with Sirius – how he had wanted to take Sirius’ hand in a show of solidarity and loyalty and placation – well, Sirius did it for him.</p><p>“Alright, Remus?” he smiled with a gentle squeeze of Remus’ palm with his fingertips, but that was all he allowed himself. Remus let the touch slip away, despite how he wished to keep it.</p><p>“I’m alright,” he nodded, though the churning in his gut disagreed.</p><p>“Sirius, darling!” a sultry voice crooned from somewhere behind them. Before he even turned, Remus felt the grating of his nerves all the way down his spine.</p><p>Sirius let out a breath before layering on a smile. “Pavonia.” There was not a hint of the glimmer of his silver eyes as he looked at the woman over Remus’ shoulder. “How are you? It has been <em>some</em> time.” Somehow, Remus could not convince himself to turn around to face her.</p><p>“Too long, love, too long,” she purred, swiftly moving into Remus’ field of vision as she planted an open kiss onto Sirius’ lips, which Sirius took bluntly. A bristle built under Remus’ skin.</p><p>“How are your parents? Everything going well with the new franchise?” Sirius asked, the smile still on his lips, now partially tinted with the remnants of this woman’s red lipstick.</p><p>“They’re opening a dozen new stores this month. Profits through the roof, of course, as always,” she laughed, a breathy, arrogant laugh that made Remus’ stomach tighten.</p><p>“Pavonia, this is Remus Lupin. Remus, Pavonia Parkinson, a friend of the family,” Sirius said, looking at Remus rather carefully. Remus couldn’t stop looking at Sirius’ reddened lips.</p><p>“Nice to meet you,” Remus spoke, stuffing down his animosity to extend a hand to the dark-haired woman who dared to kiss the man he loved. She deliberately ignored him.</p><p>“Friend of the family?” she oozed, siding up next to Sirius and Remus tried not to glance down at the way she was rutting into Sirius’ hip. “I’d like to think I’m more than just that.”</p><p>Sirius didn’t indulge her, but didn’t correct her, either. “Have you seen Lucius? I have something I need to discuss with him.” The woman in the red dress pouted her full, red lips.</p><p>“As usual, all business, darling,” she whined into his ear, whispering, though it was intentionally loud enough for Remus to be able to hear it. “Can’t I steal you for just a few minutes first? I promise to make it worth your while.” Her platinum-white teeth curved around the shell of Sirius’ ear and Remus had to look away to conceal the irritation in his gaze.</p><p>“I’m afraid I’m here for business. Nothing more,” Sirius replied, his voice perfectly level as he made it sound like if he <em>wasn’t</em> there for business, or maybe if Remus wasn’t there with him, then things would be different. Silently, Remus curled one fist at his side. Just once.   </p><p>“If you finish your business, will you have time to play?” Her lips were still on his ear. As Sirius darted his gaze over to Remus, Remus felt his jaw tighten. He looked away.</p><p>“I won’t have the strength to resist,” Sirius spoke softly, in that tone that Remus thought he reserved just for him. Did he make Remus come to prove a point? To prove that they can never be together? To prove that Sirius doesn’t need him? To prove that Sirius doesn’t <em>love</em> him?  </p><p>“I’ll be at the bar,” Remus grumbled, weaving through the crowd. In his haste, he landed against the bar so heavily that it unsettled the air in his lungs with a groan. “Bourbon, please,” he spoke at the bartender before placing his head in his hands. “I am such a fucking idiot.”</p><p>“Rough night?” he heard to his right. Half-caring, he peeked through his fingers at the man sitting next to him, wild hair and dark skin and hazel eyes behind thick, square glasses.</p><p>“You have no idea,” Remus mumbled into his fingers as a tumbler with a golden liquid was set in front of him. He downed the whole thing and requested another.</p><p>“This is my fifth whiskey,” the stranger said with a heavy sigh. “I don’t even know why I’m here, honestly. It was stupid of me to come. So, I guess I’ll drink to being a fucking idiot, too.”</p><p>Together, the two raised their glasses and toasted, knocking back the liquor and wincing at the burn it left on the way down. Remus spoke. “Feel like talking it out? I’ve got nothing better to do for the rest of the night, apparently,” he said, craning his neck as he loosened his tie.</p><p>“The girl I’m in love with, she’s here with this … arsehole that I absolutely fucking hate,” he breathed out through his teeth. “She thinks they’re just friends, but he acts like he has some sort of … <em>right</em> to her? Like just because he knows certain people that makes him <em>important</em>.”</p><p>“I take it you weren’t exactly invited to this party, either,” Remus remarked.</p><p>“I don’t run with the likes of the Malfoys,” he huffed. “I only showed up to make sure that greasy shitbag didn’t try anything despicable.” Another whiskey glass, emptied. “And you?”</p><p>Remus took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I honestly don’t know <em>why</em> I’m here.”</p><p>“You came with someone?” the stranger asked, somehow knowing.</p><p>“Someone who I thought wanted me here, but I suppose I was wrong,” he groaned, draping himself across the bar, his fingers dancing on the bottoms of overturned tumblers, set out to dry. The bartender used a dish towel to swat Remus’ hands away from the clean glass.</p><p>The hazel-eyed man leaned in close. “If it’s the bloke with the black hair and the silver eyes, I’d say he wants you here,” he said under his breath, looking past Remus’ shoulder.</p><p>“Doubtful,” Remus said without even turning. “He’s with <em>Pavonia</em>,” he mocked. </p><p>“Which one’s Pavonia?” he asked, his eyes still drawn somewhere behind Remus.</p><p>“Red dress, redder lips,” Remus mumbled bitterly.</p><p>“Ah,” the bespectacled stranger replied, glancing around the room before apparently catching sight of her. He waved his hand dismissively. “She’s latched onto someone else now.”</p><p>“Really?” Remus asked hopefully, looking up.</p><p>“Really,” he nodded, smiling. “And your black-haired friend hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you stood next to me at this bar.” A hint of pink swept over Remus’ cheeks as he looked back at his new-found friend. His attention was quickly diverted, however, by a splash of color in that monochromatic sea, a brilliant burst of red amongst the blondes and brunettes, over a pair of bright green eyes resolutely and blatantly seeking out the hazel eyes hidden from her view.</p><p>“Looks like the same is true for you and that red-haired girl in the corner,” Remus expressed, indicating the girl with his eyes. Without turning, the stranger widened his gaze.</p><p>“And the greasy shitbag? Do you see him?” he asked, breathless. “He’s got long, dark hair and he’s anemically pale, and I now realize that I’m describing ninety percent of the room.” With a full laugh, Remus looked back to this amusing stranger who was blinking impatiently behind his thick frames, a dimple forming beside his lips, hidden in the dark stubble on his copper skin.</p><p>“No shitbag in sight. She looks a bit miserable, though. I think it might be time to swoop in and save the day,” Remus advised as those hazel eyes brightened beyond imagination. Before Remus could even smile, the stranger had pulled Remus into his arms, squeezing tightly.</p><p>“I’m so glad we could be fucking idiots together,” he laughed, pulling out of the hug and standing from the bar stool, trying to smooth the wrinkles out of his worn suit. Silently, Remus pointed to his crooked tie and the stranger craned his head up to give Remus room to correct it.</p><p>“Good luck, friend,” Remus said, suddenly wishing he had asked the man’s name.</p><p>“It’s James,” he offered it, as if he could read Remus’ mind. “James Potter.”</p><p>“Remus Lupin,” Remus responded, shaking his hand for only a moment before giving James a gentle shove on the shoulder in the direction of the red-haired girl. “Go get her.”</p><p>With a step back in Remus’ direction, James slipped a business card into Remus’ front pocket, patting Remus on the chest afterward. “Call me someday and tell me how it ends with your friend. I’ll tell Lily the truth, if you tell <em>him</em>.” Before he walked away, he turned to wink.</p><p>“Easier said than done,” Remus mumbled into his drink. Just as Remus emptied another glass of bourbon, reveling in the burn instead of wincing from it, Sirius appeared next to him.</p><p>“I convinced Lucius to sell,” he said, his voice still turned subdued and even, the way it got when he was convincing someone to bend to his will. “Let’s get out of here.”</p><p>“That was quick,” Remus remarked gruffly, still leaning against the bar, somewhat surprised that Sirius had found <em>him</em> first and wasn’t off snogging Pavonia in a dark corner.</p><p>“What can I say?” Sirius moved in, resting his elbow onto the bar next to Remus and resting his head in the palm of his hand. “I’m good at getting what I want.”</p><p>“You just need to work on staying interested once you’ve gotten it,” Remus muttered.</p><p>Sirius stiffened. “What?”</p><p>“Nothing. Let’s go,” Remus said, setting his empty glass upside down onto the bar a little less gently than he intended, which garnered him a warning glare from the bartender. With a wince of apology in his expression, Remus moved swiftly to the side door they entered through, leaving Sirius behind as he strode with wide steps into the darkness. Sirius didn’t try to catch up.</p><p>With a slam, Remus was behind the wheel of the Rolls Royce, knuckles already white around it. To Remus’ surprise, Sirius didn’t take the backseat, but slid into the passenger seat again, without a word, obviously reading the situation, the way he’d been taught to do.  </p><p>Once on the dark road, Remus couldn’t stand the stifling silence between them and turned up the radio, irritated when he found it was still playing that cassette, now on a particular French song that Remus knew well enough to know it would only worsen his bitterness. With a little more force than he intended, he switched over to an FM station, recognizing David Bowie’s <em>I Wish You Would</em> playing through the speakers. His foot got a little heavy on the gas pedal.</p><p>Eventually, Sirius let out a short sigh. “Can we talk about this?” he half-shouted over the stereo. The leather steering wheel creaked as Remus’ grip around it tightened and twisted.</p><p>A sharp, sarcastic laugh moved up Remus’ throat. “You only ask me that when there’s nothing left to talk about. When things have been made pretty fucking clear.”</p><p>“Tell me what things are clear <em>now</em>,” Sirius coaxed, much to Remus’ annoyance, because he couldn’t resist the softness of Sirius’ voice as Sirius turned the volume on the stereo down.</p><p>“I heard you pretty clearly tell Pavonia that you wouldn’t have the strength to resist her, so the only thing I’m unclear on is why you even wanted me to –” Remus stopped short as he realized that Sirius was doubled over in laughter on the passenger side of the car.</p><p>“<em>That’s</em> what you’re mad at me for?” he cackled, throwing his head back.</p><p>“What the fuck is so funny about that?” Remus maintained the coarseness of his voice, despite how his anger was rapidly melting at the sight of Sirius so heedless and relaxed, so different from the sharp arch of his back and the harsh lines of his expression at the party.</p><p>“I was saying that to <em>you</em>, you oblivious walnut,” Sirius laughed, reaching over and poking Remus in the ribs, which Remus curved away from, swerving the car from the road as he did.</p><p>“What? No,” Remus argued while Sirius continued to try to tickle him. “You definitely said it to her, <em>she</em> was the one speaking to you. She said …” he trailed off, trying to remember.</p><p>“She <em>said</em>, and I quote,” Sirius emphasized, pinching his nose closed to mimic the sharp, nasally quality of Pavonia’s voice, “<em>If you finish your business, will you have time to play?”</em></p><p>“Yes, which …” Sirius interrupted him before he could argue any further.</p><p>“She didn’t specifically ask if I would have time to play <em>with her</em>,” Sirius concluded calmly, holding his index finger in the air, as if it helped him make the point. It somehow did.</p><p>“That’s semantics,” Remus said, looking over out of the corner of his eye.</p><p>“I make my father rich through semantics, Remus, it’s what I do,” Sirius said with a shrug as he pulled at the ribbon barely holding his hair on top of his head, sending it cascading down over his face. “When I said I’d have no strength to resist, I meant right now, in this car, with <em>you</em>.”</p><p>A blush swept over Remus’ freckles, hidden by the dark. “<em>Oh</em>.”</p><p>“But instead, as my revenge, I’m going to force you to listen to me sing this Bowie song loudly and badly, so get ready,” Sirius grinned, licking his lips and cranking up the volume.</p><p>“No, God, anything but your <em>singing</em>,” Remus groaned, pretending to argue, but the smile on his face surely gave him away. There was no sweeter sound on earth than Sirius’ voice.  </p><p>“Come back baby, I wish you would!” Sirius shouted, only half on melody, purposefully cracking his voice to make Remus laugh, kneeling in the middle of the bench seat so he could run his fingers through Remus’ hair, wildly and absurdly. “This crying and grieving won’t do me no good!” As the next lyric approached, Remus held his breath, wondering if Sirius would sing it to him. “Hey, pretty baby, I …” Sirius continued, halting suddenly as Bowie’s voice sang without Sirius’ accompaniment. <em>Hey, pretty baby, I love you so</em>. Sirius’ eyes found Remus’ in the dark.</p><p>Not wanting to stop the momentum with such weight, Remus faked a laugh over the rest of the line to pretend like he never heard it. “Bowie is too easy for you,” he said, hiding the wavering of his voice. “Sing me something difficult, since you speak sixteen languages.”</p><p>“I only speak <em>four</em>, thank you very much,” Sirius corrected sheepishly as Remus switched back to the cassette. As the song began to play, Sirius took a breath, glancing at Remus. “<em>This</em> song?” Sirius asked, his expression softening tenfold. There was no pause in Remus’ reply, <em>knowing</em> the context of the song – it was his mother’s favourite French song, a song she often sang to his father. And with the way Sirius was looking at him, Remus couldn’t help himself.</p><p>“<em>This</em> song,” he nodded with an unstable breath. For a moment, Sirius just watched him, and Remus desperately wished he could pull the car over to give Sirius his undivided attention.</p><p>On a short breath, Sirius moved in close, his leg folded over the seat so that his shin was pressed to Remus’ thigh. As he rested his head in his hand, propped up on the back of the seat, he looked resolutely at Remus, though Remus could only <em>feel</em> the steadiness of his gaze.</p><p>“Quand il me prend dans ses bras, qu’il me parle tout bas, je vois la vie en rose,” Sirius sang softly, nearly a whisper, and Remus couldn’t help the way he reacted to the sweetness of his voice, a breath slipping from his lips as he felt Sirius’ eyes move down to their movement. “Il me dit des mots d’amour, des mots de tous les jours et ça m'fait quelque chose.”</p><p>Of all the things he’d learned from his mother, suddenly <em>this</em> was the thing he was most grateful for, because when Sirius sang, Remus could hear it for the truth that it was. <em>He speaks words of love to me</em>, the vocalist sang.<em> They’re everyday words, but they do something to me.</em></p><p>As Sirius continued, his fingers moved close, twirling in the wild curls of Remus’ hair that coiled out past Remus’ ear. “ll est entré dans mon cœur, une part de bonheur dont je connais la cause.” His voice had never been so soft, his expression never so fragile, his tone never so honest. When his touch moved to the spine of Remus’ ear, Remus shivered underneath it.</p><p>“Ç'est toi pour moi, moi pour toi dans la vie, il me l'as dit, m'as juré pour la vie, et,” Sirius crooned, his voice sliding from one note into the next seamlessly as Remus helplessly and shamelessly craned into his touch, craving for more as the words from Sirius’ lips moved into his chest, beating out a new rhythm. <em>It’s only you for me, and me for you, for all my life.</em></p><p>In response, Sirius leaned in closer, as close as the space and positioning would allow, pressing his lips to Remus’ ear as the song concluded. “Dès que je t’aperçois, alors je sens en moi mon cœur qui bat.” As the songstress vocalized, Sirius hummed the melody, moving his kiss down the curve of Remus’ jaw, his hand winding up the back of Remus’ neck into his hair. </p><p>For half a moment, Remus felt the weight of guilt building in his gut at letting Sirius touch him this way, letting Sirius kiss him this way, knowing nothing would come of it. The guilt compounded as he thought of his father and how he had forbidden Remus from being with Sirius, the fear in his face when he spoke of Orion ever finding out. The guilt crested.</p><p>“I can’t do this anymore,” Remus whined, pulling the car over to the side of the dark, empty street and throwing it into park just before turning his head to pull Sirius to his mouth, greedily and without remorse. In surprise at the brazenness of Remus’ kiss, Sirius pulled back with a sharp, aching breath, holding Remus by the face, as if to inspect his expression.  </p><p>“Are you sure? What if we get caught again?” Sirius asked breathlessly, glasses fogging.</p><p>“J’en ai rien à foutre,” Remus growled, angling himself out from underneath the steering wheel so he could push Sirius back onto the full length of the Rolls Royce bench seat. As they moved, Remus didn’t let Sirius’ lips get too far, savoring every moment he was allowed to feel the slide of Sirius’ tongue against his own, to taste the lingering sting of nicotine on every exhale of Sirius’ breath, to feel the impatience and persistence in the way Sirius kissed him back.</p><p>“Fuck, you <em>do</em> know French,” Sirius laughed hoarsely, his breath drawing out as a moan as Remus settled over the top of him, nestling between his legs on the narrow seat.</p><p>“Enough to know you were just serenading me with a love song,” Remus said with a contented hum before devouring Sirius in another deep and hungering kiss. The laugh in Sirius’ throat echoed out into Remus’ mouth as Sirius pulled him in closer, fingers in Remus’ hair.</p><p>“If I remember correctly, <em>you</em> were the one who requested it,” Sirius half-argued, his breathing coming up much too short, his lips never empty long enough to speak in full.</p><p>“I just wanted you to sing to me,” Remus lied partly, curling his fingers at the back of Sirius’ neck to coax his head back in order to make more space for Remus’ lips. For several long minutes, Remus bathed Sirius in kisses, as far as his mouth could reach. “<em>God</em>, I missed you.”</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>,” Sirius called out on audibly empty lungs.</p><p>“Which is … a ridiculous thing to say,” Remus spoke in fragments, spaced in between the moments of his lips on Sirius’ skin. “Because I was never really without you.”</p><p>“No, that’s …” Sirius began, before starting over. “I was <em>very much</em> without you the last few days and I have never felt so empty in all my life.” With gratification swelling in his chest, Remus took a moment to push up, looking at Sirius lying underneath him, eager and waiting.</p><p>“Careful, Sirius,” Remus smirked arrogantly, unsettling Sirius’ lips with a delicate, exposed kiss that bled with his affection. “You’re dangerously close to admitting you <em>care</em> for me.”  </p><p>With a laugh that fluttered under Remus’ lips, Sirius hummed, moving his hands down to Remus’ waist, unbuttoning the waistcoat underneath his suit jacket. “You already know I do.”  </p><p>“Tell me in French,” Remus teased. Sirius didn’t hesitate.</p><p>“Oh, si tu pouvais lire dans mon cœur, tu verrais la place où je t’ai mise,” he whispered, unfastening every button underneath his fingers, craning up so their lips didn’t have to part.</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus exhaled heavily, letting his jacket slip to the floor. There was a jolt in his chest at hearing Sirius admit there was a place in his heart that he saved for Remus.</p><p>“You’re better at French than you let on,” Sirius grinned, his cheeks pink at the realization that Remus could understand him quite clearly. As a distraction to the confession he’d just released into the air between them, Sirius let his fingers drift down Remus’ exposed waist.</p><p>“I had to hide it, just for moments like this,” Remus said, and there was rampant pride in his voice until Sirius began to unfasten his belt. His smug demeanor slipped, swiftly replaced by anticipation and tension, and his chest began to heave deeply without his command. “<em>Sirius</em>.”</p><p>“Do you want me to keep talking?” Sirius asked, looking up through hooded lids and dark lashes, an inciteful expression made darker by the disheveled hair swept over his face.</p><p>Remus swallowed as the zipper on his trousers became undone. “Yes. <em>Yes</em>.” Just then, the arrogance had returned to Sirius’ expression from where Remus had only borrowed it.</p><p>“In French?” he clarified, pupils wide and focused.</p><p>“Anything,” Remus breathed out as Sirius brushed his fingers down Remus’ length, leaving a pulsing of blood in their wake. “I just want to hear your voice.”</p><p>“Careful, Remus,” Sirius returned the sentiment, slipping the full length of his hand into the open waist of Remus’ trousers. “You’re dangerously close to admitting you <em>care</em> for me.”</p><p>“I don’t need to admit things you already know,” Remus moaned as he felt Sirius curl his fingers around him. In his impatience, Remus’ hands went to Sirius’ trousers, unfastening everything in his way until Sirius was just as exposed as he was, covered by only a single layer.</p><p> “<em>Jesus</em>, Remus,” Sirius said, voraciously pulling Remus back to his mouth as Remus moved Sirius’ hand from between his legs so that he could press his hips deeper into Sirius. “Et tu sais déjà combien tu compte pour moi. Non, ç'est <em>plus</em> que tu ne sais,” he growled, and Remus went dizzy with hearing Sirius admit that Remus meant more to him that he could say.</p><p>“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you to say that to me?” Remus laughed softly. “I’ve waited for you for so long, I can hardly believe this is even real,” Remus said with awe in his voice, arching his hips into Sirius’ so he could feel the full length of him against still-covered skin.</p><p>“I know, Remus. <em>God</em>, I know,” Sirius spoke into Remus’ mouth, heavy and warm.</p><p>“Except I really wish we weren’t in this car and I really wish you’d chosen a suit that was easier to take off,” Remus grumbled, and Sirius laughed loudly in the middle of another kiss.</p><p>“I picked this suit <em>knowing</em> you’d want to take it off,” Sirius grinned devilishly.</p><p>“God, you were right,” Remus said, an uncontrolled growl in his throat. “But I want to take off <em>so</em> much more than this. I want to feel you under my skin without all these layers.”</p><p>“Then get rid of them,” Sirius replied, his breathing stunted as he began working on removing the collar chain, tossing it carelessly onto the carpeted floor. “Take everything off.”</p><p>“<em>Fuck</em>,” Remus moaned roughly, the frantic work of his hands moving up to tear at the tie around Sirius’ throat as his ravenous lips returned to Sirius’ again. Once the tie drifted down to the floor, Remus was quick to snap open the buttons of Sirius’ pressed black shirt, displaying his taut collarbones and the full, arching lines of his throat. “<em>Jesus</em>,” he exhaled, eyes wide.</p><p>A sarcastic laugh bubbled up Sirius’ throat. “I’ve been <em>practically</em> naked in front of you a hundred times, Remus. You’ve seen all of this before.” Remus could only shake his head.</p><p>“Not when you were underneath me. Not when I could reach out and touch you. Not when I knew I was allowed to see the rest of it,” Remus said, taking full advantage of the fact that he could touch Sirius, that he could <em>kiss</em> him, that he could look at him relentlessly.</p><p>“Keep going, then,” Sirius provoked him, anxiously finishing the job in Remus’ place until the full expanse of his bare waist was on display for Remus alone. “The rest of it is yours to see.” </p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus said on unsettled lungs, bursting with too much breath and aching from not enough of it. His hands raked down Sirius’ chest, leaving red trails on pale skin. As his fingers reached the waist of Sirius’ black boxer-briefs, Remus indulged himself in tracing the rigid imprint of Sirius’ cock from beyond the fabric as Sirius writhed underneath his faint touch.</p><p>“Remus, please,” Sirius begged, the sound of it sending a twitch into Remus’ hips. He was quick to end Sirius’ suffering, finally tugging away the last thing keeping Sirius from him.</p><p>At the sight of Sirius’ blatant arousal underneath him, Remus let a wanting breath move from his throat. No longer was it just the shape of unwarranted swelling first thing in the morning hidden by the edge of a sheet, or the result of a self-imposed lengthening not intended to be witnessed. No, underneath him, Sirius was naked and thrumming and it was <em>for</em> <em>Remus</em>.</p><p>“<em>Oh</em>,” Remus breathed out, blinking heavily, his mouth naturally falling slack.</p><p>Watching Remus’ expression, Sirius’ eyebrow rose sharply. “I need <em>you</em> now,” he said, biting his lip as he let his fingertips move deeply between Remus’ legs, dragging their way up to the sensitive head of Remus’ cock, where they circled for a moment to stimulate him more.</p><p>“Oh my <em>God</em>,” Remus moaned on a prolonged breath as he found himself wrapping his fingers around the shaft of Sirius’ cock, shifting his wrist to deliver weighted strokes. As Sirius’ breaths increased to a feverish pace, he adjusted Remus’ boxers down his hips.</p><p>The spike of Sirius’ breathing stopped, and Remus looked up from the work of his hands to find Sirius’ eyes blown hollow in the dark as they regarded the new skin before them.</p><p>“Remus, you … how are you so …” The speaker of four languages was suddenly lost for words in any of them, save for one. “Fuck,” he breathed out, slipping his hand underneath where Remus hung, sliding his fingertips down the length and watching the way it unsettled Remus.</p><p>Without a drop of restraint left, Remus straightened his back, shifting his hips as close to Sirius’ mouth as he could get. “Get me wet,” he stated bluntly, and Sirius’ gaze immediately flicked up to meet Remus’ own. In his surprise at the veracity in Remus’ demand, at the harshness of his normally softened voice, at the haste in his amber gaze, a whimpering breath escaped from Sirius’ lips as his virile stare moved back to the center of Remus’ hips.</p><p>“Yes, <em>fuck</em>, yes,” he stammered, adjusting and bending and craning until he could pull Remus into his mouth, and he did so fully, without any acclimation, a wicked hum in his throat.</p><p>Whatever control Remus thought he had dissipated, reducing him to a quivering, cursing mess as he gave in to the heat of Sirius’ mouth, the swirl of his tongue, the insistent grip of his fingernails as they dug into the soft skin above Remus’ hipbones. What was meant to be merely a means to ease the friction of Sirius’ skin against his own brought Remus to the edge of climax.</p><p>“Fuck, <em>wait</em>,” Remus growled as he reluctantly slipped from Sirius’ mouth, holding Sirius delicately by the chin. The look on Sirius’ face was chaotic – a breathless chest, reddened lips, and a devoted fixation under a maddening gaze, as if he were angry that Remus stopped him.</p><p>“You were close, I could <em>feel</em> it. Let me finish,” he argued, opening his mouth again, his tongue moving past the border of his lips as he readied it to taste Remus’ skin. The argument died in his throat as Remus shifted the weight of his hips down, the now-slick of his skin slipping against Sirius’ cock without resistance. Sirius’ mouth remained open, his head falling back, a praise drawing up from the caverns of his chest. “Oh, no, this is … this is good, too. <em>Christ</em>.”</p><p>“Jesus, fuck,” Remus howled, undone by the lascivious expression on Sirius’ face and knowing it was a direct result of his touch. As he thrust his hips into Sirius’ again and again, he could feel the body of the car rocking on the pavement underneath the waves of his movement.</p><p>“Speak to me again, Remus,” Sirius insisted, calling breathlessly into the chasm of Remus’ throat before rolling his tongue through Remus’ mouth. “Your French <em>ruins</em> me.”</p><p>Remus indulged him immediately, burying his words between kisses and within moans, without losing the momentum of his hips. His grip on Sirius’ length tensed as he shifted his cock in and out of his own wet fingers, along Sirius. “Je voulais faire ça depuis très longtemps.”</p><p>“Yes, <em>yes</em>,” Sirius panted, pulling Remus to his mouth again. “Jesus, so have I.”   </p><p>A territorial growl clawed up from Remus’ throat. “I don’t care if we have to keep it a secret,” he said, his breathing becoming more shallow as he approached a very defined point. “I am going to find a way to fuck you in every room of your parent’s house <em>and</em> mine.”</p><p>“Oh, <em>yes</em>,” Sirius called, his voice breaking into a whisper. “More, tell me more.”</p><p>“God, you make me so fucking crazy. Je suis folle de toi,” he moved in and out of English as his concentration laxed and swelled with the spark of the orgasm surging in his gut.</p><p>“Don’t stop,” Sirius begged, slipping his hand around Remus’ neck as he arched his back in an effort to bury himself deeper within Remus’ fist. The long lines of Sirius’ throat beckoned to Remus’ lips and he answered greedily, biting and sucking at the base of Sirius’ neck.</p><p>“Je veux te faire l'amour pour le reste de ma vie.” The confession left Remus’ lips before he knew what he was saying, drunk on the feeling of Sirius’ skin under his teeth, the throb of Sirius’ cock against his fingertips, the memory of Sirius’ face between his legs.</p><p>But before sense had a chance to creep back in and overwhelm him, Remus felt Sirius’ thighs twitch underneath him, his fingers gripping insistently on the back of Remus’ neck.</p><p>“Oh, <em>Remus</em>, fuck, fuck,” he called out in a rasping voice stripped of breath as he spilled out into Remus’ fist. Remus looked up just in time to see the release in Sirius’ expression – the screwing of his eyes closed behind frames askew on his ears, his mouth hanging loose as the calls of ecstasy moved from it, dark hair clinging to the glistening of sweat that dampened his throat.</p><p>With a desperate whimper and a trembling breath after watching Sirius Black climax underneath him, Remus shifted to move Sirius from his touch, continuing to stroke himself, using Sirius’ spunk as improvised lubricant. And Sirius’ gaze, still hungry, watched zealously.</p><p>As he laid beneath Remus, an obvious purple love bite darkening the valley of his collarbone, Sirius looked up at him, spent and well-pleasured. The silver of his eyes constantly adjusted as his pupils fought between dilation and constriction, coming down heavily from his own orgasm, but wild with the sight of Remus bringing himself off in front of him.</p><p>“You want to make love to me <em>forever</em>,” Sirius finally repeated Remus’ wish, with wonder in his voice as his hands moved up Remus’ thighs, across the broken border of fabric to bare skin.</p><p>“Yes,” Remus admitted, after years of hiding it. “<em>Only</em> you.” In the dark, Remus watched a breath of surprise draw into Sirius’ lips, Sirius’ gaze drifting up to find Remus’ amber eyes.</p><p>“Then I am no one but yours, Remus,” Sirius whispered, his eyes unmoving, resolute in the way he held Remus’ stare, despite the sharp, unsettled way Remus gasped in response.</p><p>“Say it again,” Remus demanded, biting hard onto his hip. “Say you’re mine.”</p><p>“I’m yours, love,” Sirius repeated with insistence, his fingers gripping tightly onto the soft skin of Remus’ waist, his thumbs stroking delicately along the numerous scars they found there.</p><p>At the breakable expression on Sirius’ face, with his eyes soft and his lips curling up into a fond smile, Remus felt a warm but terrible pressure move through his chest, quite different from the impending orgasm in his hips, but coexisting and melding together until Remus couldn’t tell one from the other. The power and the rhythm of his hand both increased in time to it.</p><p>Before Remus could ask him to speak again, Sirius <em>was</em> speaking. It wasn’t anything that hadn’t already been said, but the weight was different. The volume of Sirius’ voice was low and definitive, his pace slow and deliberate, his gaze unbroken and bright. “Je t'appartiens.”</p><p>It wasn’t the French that did it. It wasn’t the way Sirius was half-undressed underneath him, clothes scattered recklessly across his skin. It wasn’t the way his gaze was still dilated with need or the way he was still half-hard beneath Remus’ legs. No, the catalyst that broke open Remus’ ducts and sent a tempestuous orgasm through his veins was hearing Sirius’ voice in that unusually trepid whisper concede an unexpected truth. That he <em>belonged</em> to Remus, fully.</p><p>“Jesus <em>fucking</em> Christ, Sirius,” Remus groaned heavily, raising his head to the ceiling of the Rolls Royce, his eyes fluttering closed as the warm liquid of his orgasm spread over his fingers, the muscles in his thighs and in his abdomen twitching in time to his violent pulse.</p><p>For a moment, Remus let himself stay kneeled over Sirius, still holding himself in his hand, still feeling the sticky aftermath seep through his fingers, still trying to convince his soaring pulse and his heaving breath to slow and even. Once he looked down, licking his lips from where they had chapped from the tumultuous amount of breath moving through them, he found Sirius looking back at him, though his eyes were unfixed, roving over all the skin displayed for him.</p><p>“Mon dieu, t'es si beau,” Sirius said, swallowing hard as he struggled to right his breathing. An immediate, lasting blush stormed into Remus’ face, his neck, his chest.</p><p>“I should say the same about you,” Remus replied, shaking his head in disbelief and letting his eyes inspect every inch of Sirius’ skin, while it was still available for him to see.</p><p>With a quiet laugh, Sirius looked down at the mess between them. “God, I already want you to fuck me again,” he moaned, knowing even as he spoke that they didn’t have enough time.</p><p>“If I thought we could get away with it, I would,” Remus smirked. “But my father knew before we left that we’d be home early. He knows you hate the Malfoys. Especially Lucius.”</p><p>“Shit, I should’ve pretended to be more excited about that tedious party,” Sirius said with an overexaggerated sigh as Remus found a towel in the glove compartment, trying not to think about its prior uses. He did his best to wipe the mess from his hands, moving to where it had dribbled onto Sirius’ naked belly and Sirius arched at the contact. “Oh, <em>this</em> isn’t helping.”</p><p>The arrogant smirk deepened on Remus’ face. “We can’t exactly go back to the house covered in the evidence that we fucked in the car.” Sirius smacked his lips deliberately.</p><p>“You know, before all this, I don’t think I’d ever heard you use the word fuck,” he said, raising his eyebrow in Remus’ direction as Remus cleaned his skin. “It’s … I like it <em>far</em> too much.”</p><p>“Oh, you shouldn’t have told me that,” Remus said, closing his eyes tightly, imagining all the ways he could use that to rile Sirius up wildly with only a single word. “I’ll use it against you.”</p><p>Sirius smiled, darting his tongue out to wet the corner of his lips. “I was hoping you would say that.” As Remus moved the towel, he allowed himself a moment to fondle Sirius with tenderness and devotion, the length of Sirius growing increasingly more stiff with the contact.</p><p>“Remus,” Sirius called out, arching at the stimulation. “Either stop or don’t stop, but you’re going to have to choose one or the other right now before I choose for you.”</p><p>“Hmm,” Remus breathed out, letting Sirius slip from his fingers. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t you the one who said you wanted me to – what was it – take advantage of you?”</p><p>The noise from Sirius’ throat fell somewhere between a submissive whine and an argumentative growl. “Which isn’t the same as ramping me up with nowhere to go.”</p><p>“Isn’t it?” Remus replied flatly, looking at Sirius with incitation in his gaze as he less-than-delicately tucked Sirius back into his boxers, trailing the fabric with a strong slide of his hand.</p><p>“Fuck,” Sirius said, his breathing spiked. “<em>God</em>, yes. Whatever you say, darling.”</p><p>“That’s kind of what I thought you’d say,” Remus said with a contented, victorious smile as he moved back to the driver’s side of the car, covering and adjusting as he slid underneath the steering wheel. With intention, he left his trousers blatantly unfastened, though his focus moved to trying to clear the fog they had created on the windows with their breath and their heat.</p><p>“Kind of?” Sirius asked as he sat up, moving into the small section of the seat that was right next to Remus. Remus couldn’t help but notice Sirius remained unzipped, too.</p><p>“I didn’t expect you to call me darling,” Remus admitted. “That was a nice addition.”</p><p>“I’m using your tenderness against you,” Sirius purred, moving close to his ear as Remus put the car into drive, lurching out onto the empty street. “I know you love pet names.”</p><p>“And how did you come to that conclusion?” Remus asked vaguely, trying not to give away that Sirius was absolutely right, that Remus softened significantly when Sirius called him anything other than his given name. Honestly, even Sirius calling him by his name, if he said it in the right way (and he <em>always</em> said it in the right way), led to the same reaction.</p><p>“When we were getting drunk the other night on the balcony, I let it slip and called you sweetheart by accident. I was pretty sure it wasn’t coincidence that you started touching me <em>a lot more</em> after that.” With a sharply raised eyebrow, Remus looked over and Sirius took that opportunity to steal a kiss from Remus’ lips – a kiss that was over far too quickly for Remus.</p><p>“Have I really been <em>that</em> obvious?” Remus laughed pathetically, resting his forehead on the steering wheel for only a moment before returning his eyes to the road.</p><p>“Of course,” Sirius scoffed, as if it wasn’t even a question. “And I wanted to act on it <em>so badly, </em>but you’re my best friend and you work for my father and I had to be sure before I –”</p><p>“Wait, <em>I’m</em> your best friend?” Remus asked, his voice rising to a sharpened pitch.</p><p>“Remus, we just fucked in my car,” Sirius stated bluntly, and Remus tried to pretend that he didn’t feel a twitch in his hips by it. “At this point, you’re <em>more</em> than just my best friend.”</p><p>After all they had just done and said to each other, Remus was surprised to feel the warmth of a blush in his cheeks. “Well, I knew we were … I don’t know, friends I guess, but you’ve never called me that. All this time, I didn’t know I was your <em>best</em> friend.”</p><p>Sirius sighed loudly. “I’m with you twelve hours every day and I haven’t ever tried to change that because you’re <em>my best friend</em>. When do I ever spend time with other people?”</p><p>“Sometimes people come to the manor to see you,” Remus argued, half-heartedly.</p><p>“And then I send them away as quickly as I can so I can be with <em>you</em>, you donut,” Sirius laughed, resting his hand on Remus’ thigh and his chin on Remus’ shoulder.</p><p>“Is that an insult?” Remus returned a laugh of his own, distracting Sirius. “I don’t know where you come up with these. Why is it always food? What does that even mean?”</p><p>“It means you’re delicious, which I now know <em>firsthand</em>,” Sirius said, softly blowing into Remus’ ear, which sent a violent shiver down the full length of his spine. With a satisfied hum, Sirius tucked Remus’ wild curls behind his ear so he could make Remus shiver again, but <em>worse</em>, as he brushed his lips along the spine of Remus’ ear and gently nibbled at his earlobe. “Besides, they’re terms of endearment. An insult of endearment. Like a pet name, but more fun.”</p><p>“But donut? Walnut? Give me something better than that.” He choked on his laugh, sucking in a sharp breath of air through his teeth as Sirius’ fingers curled around his inner thigh.</p><p>“I’m so glad you said that, Remus, because I’ve been sitting on a perfect pet name for you, but it’s a little sketchy, and I’ve been waiting for the right time to introduce it.”</p><p>“I would’ve thought the right time would’ve been while I fucked you. Seems a perfect time to call out someone’s name,” Remus reasoned, watching Sirius unfold at the phrasing.</p><p>“No, not with this one. Because you might hate it. And if you hated it, you would’ve stopped fucking me and that was a risk I was <em>not</em> willing to take,” Sirius monologued.</p><p>Remus rolled his eyes, but his smile deepened. “Let’s hear it then.” With a breath of preparation, Sirius leaned in close, his hand on Remus’ thigh slipping into the still-open waist of Remus’ trousers, his fingers moving deftly over Remus’ half-covered, semi-aroused cock.</p><p>“I have to butter you up a bit first, just in case you hate it,” Sirius sighed.</p><p>“I’m not going to hate it, but you’re welcome to keep going,” Remus said, smiling, the pace of his words calm despite the way he felt the pace of his breathing begin to climb.</p><p>“Oh, I could touch you forever, Moony,” he breathed into Remus’ ear as he fondled him.</p><p>An immediate breath pulled into Remus’ chest. “<em>Fuck</em>.”</p><p>“Was that a ‘<em>fuck, yes, I want you to scream it while I ruin you’</em> or a ‘<em>fuck you for using my lycanthropy as a pet name</em>’?” Sirius asked, and Remus could hear the anxiety in his trembling voice, but the movement of his hand hadn’t stopped. And Remus didn’t have to think about which one it was, the reaction to that name in his chest (and in his hips) was shameless.</p><p>“That was a …” he paused to suck in a new breath, leaving him dizzy. “Fuck <em>me</em>.”</p><p>“Oh,” Sirius emphasized on a weighted exhale. “Oh, oh <em>God</em>, I should’ve used it sooner.”</p><p>“You should’ve used it sooner, Sirius, <em>Jesus</em>,” Remus growled, arching his hips from the seat to increase the pressure from Sirius’ palm between his legs. “How is that so fucking hot?”</p><p>“Because I’m the only one outside of your family that knows what’s inside you,” Sirius said, his voice deep and husky in Remus’ ear. “And I’m not afraid of him.”</p><p>“You <em>should</em> be,” Remus threatened. “He could rip you to shreds.”</p><p>He smiled, pressing his teeth to Remus’ ear. “So could <em>you</em>, I imagine.”</p><p>“Is that what you want?” Remus taunted. “You want me to <em>hurt</em> you?”</p><p>“Maybe a little,” Sirius evaded. “Keep driving,” he commanded as he ducked his head underneath Remus’ arm, where it was tight on the steering wheel, and immediately began mouthing at Remus’ cock from where it was buried within the fabric of his pants.</p><p>“God, what the <em>fuck</em>, Sirius,” Remus growled, taking only a moment to lean back with his head arched over the headrest, a slight swerve in the control he held on the wheel. The breath from Sirius’ lips was wet and warm and winding, swirling deep between Remus’ thighs every time Sirius breathed, and he was breathing <em>so</em> heavily, so rapidly, so deliberately.</p><p>“Do you think I’ll make it?” Sirius teased as Remus glanced down to find Sirius looking up at him, his fingers tucked into the waist of Remus’ boxers. With one flourish of his wrist, Remus was exposed again and there was no pause before Sirius’ tongue was circling his head.</p><p>“Oh, fuck, yes,” Remus called out into the dark. “You have me so on edge, Sirius, you’ll have enough time to do this six times over, if that’s what you fucking want.” As his reply, instead of removing himself from Remus to speak, Sirius hummed indecently, the vibrations of it echoing out into Remus’ stimulated skin as Sirius wrapped his lips tightly around the tip, sucking it in and out of his mouth while Remus rapidly fell apart, moaning and cursing and whimpering.</p><p>After paying gratuitous attention to the sensitive head of Remus’ cock, Sirius slipped the whole length of Remus into his throat, pulling up indolently and raptly. Remus could feel the stroke of his tongue from within his mouth with every new plunge into his throat.</p><p>“This isn’t fair, you can’t talk to me with my cock in your mouth,” Remus complained, one hand going into Sirius’ hair, cupping the curve of the back of his neck.</p><p>With vindication in his movement, Sirius slipped Remus from his lips, only just, as he spoke, his lips mumbling calculated words against the tip of Remus. “Holy <em>fuck</em>, Moony.”</p><p>“Goddammit, Sirius,” Remus exhaled, his voice rising to nearly a shout as Sirius took him back into his throat. That name <em>did</em> things to him. And maybe it was Sirius’ voice, or maybe it was the way he spoke with his tongue pressed to the slit of Remus’ cock, or maybe it was knowing that Sirius was so unequivocally attracted to him that even his lycanthropy was endearing.</p><p>Whatever magical combination of things it was had Remus peering over that familiar edge again, after only a few strokes in Sirius’ mouth. His knuckles were so tight on the steering wheel, he began to wonder if the skin was splitting under the strain. If so, he certainly couldn’t feel it. All he could feel was the warmth and pressure of Sirius’ mouth and the torrent of blinding pleasure that was steadily strengthening and encroaching from its place in his gut.</p><p>Sirius could feel it, too, apparently, because he took Remus in that much deeper, driving his face as far into Remus’ lap as it could go, humming and moaning and sucking.</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus called out as a warning, feeling that breaking point start to grow and spread. “Please don’t stop, please don’t stop.” His voice was hollow, his tone urgent. And Sirius steadied himself, keeping a very deliberate pace and pressure until Remus found that edge in fluttering muscles tight with a wretched ache and pulsing skin that spent his need. Again, he called out Sirius’ name, fingers tight in Sirius’ hair. “Yes, yes, <em>yes</em>. Ohh, fuck <em>me</em>, Sirius.”</p><p>As he arched up from the seat, pressing deeper into Sirius’ throat as he spilled out into it, Sirius held him lightly by the base of his cock, his lips sealed tight to catch every drop of Remus’ orgasm, going so far as to lap at Remus once he swallowed, as if he enjoyed the taste.</p><p>“Fuck,” Remus groaned again, loudly, repeating it for good measure. “<em>Fuck</em>.”</p><p>“Mm,” Sirius agreed with a wet smack of his lips. Considerately, he tucked Remus back into his boxers before turning in his place, lying with his head in Remus’ lap. “God, Moony.”</p><p>“You really like that name,” Remus remarked, trying to catch his breath.</p><p>“Apparently, so do you,” Sirius said under a mischievous grin. When Remus glanced down to see that smile in full, his breath caught at the sight of it, at the <em>whole</em> sight. Sirius Black resting his head in Remus’ lap, his lips reddened and slightly swollen, his silver eyes dilated in desire and darkness, his long black hair draped over Remus’ still open trousers. It was <em>stunning</em>.</p><p>“Jesus, I <em>really</em> do,” Remus agreed, feeling a swell of wild disbelief in his chest.</p><p>“I hate to tell you this, but I’m going to need one for myself. So that we match. You’d better get started on that, I’m expecting results, Remus.” Sirius’ eyes danced with amusement.</p><p>“You already have one, don’t you remember?” Remus said, glancing down just in time to see Sirius’ eyes widen in anticipation and surprise. Casually, Remus moved one hand from the wheel and settled it on top of Sirius’ chest, and Sirius’ expression went soft at the intimacy of it.</p><p>“Don’t lie to me, Moony, I’d know if I had one.” Sirius used his nickname with intent.</p><p>“My mother will be heartbroken to find out you forgot,” Remus said, trying to trigger Sirius’ memory. When Sirius had been very young, probably only until the age of five or six, Hope had been his nanny. He and Remus had literally been raised together, up to the point where Remus had to learn the societal difference between them, which they’d overcome anyway.</p><p>In those last few years, his mother would later tell Remus, there wasn’t anything she could do to keep Sirius Black in a pair of shoes. It didn’t matter if they were in the kitchen or the rock garden or at his first French lesson. His shoes went missing. Rather, deliberately abandoned.</p><p>“Padfoot,” Sirius smiled, his voice gone distant, his eyes vacant with nostalgia. “I nearly <em>had</em> forgotten. I haven’t gotten to hear her call me that in a long, long time.”</p><p>“She still does, every once in a while,” Remus said, admiring Sirius below his arms, absently stroking Sirius’ chest with his fingertips, his touch dusting over Sirius’ ribs.</p><p>“I think the last time she called me Padfoot was that Christmas when she and Lyall bought me those slippers that look like bear claws,” Sirius laughed loudly. “She gave me a great big hug and said, ‘<em>You’d better not lose these, Padfoot, like you do all your other shoes.”</em></p><p>“You wore those hideous things to thread,” Remus added, joining in the laughter.</p><p>“It might be weird for me, you know,” Sirius stated, suddenly solemn, looking up at Remus with a strange expression. “If you call me by your mother’s nickname while you fuck me.”</p><p>A raucous laugh bubbled up from Remus’ throat and it carried so long that Sirius was helplessly drawn into it until their chorus of laughter filled the car, until they were wiping tears from their eyes, until their ribs were sore from the absence of breath to support them.</p><p>Their laughter died a bit as Remus pulled up the front gate of the Black family estate, the truth of their situation looming as great as the big house. The last several hours had been a blissful blur, just the two of them, as alone as they had ever been. Going back into that house meant going back to living in secret, now more than ever. The weight would be suffocating.</p><p>“Was this our first date?” Sirius asked suddenly and Remus smiled.</p><p>“I guess it was.” For a moment, Sirius’ expression was thoughtful, his head still in Remus’ lap. That wicked grin returned to his face quickly, however, as he took Remus’ hand.</p><p>“I never would’ve thought you’d put out on the first date,” Sirius said with a tilt of his head, seconds before Remus began attacking him with his fingertips against Sirius’ ribcage.</p><p>“What are you trying to say, Sirius?” he shouted as Sirius sat up, struggling, laughing.</p><p>“You’re a slut, Remus Lupin!” he yelled back, yelping as Remus’ tickles turned to pinching, and Sirius’ laughter doubled. “Hey, it’s not <em>my</em> fault! You were the one who kissed <em>me</em>!”</p><p>“Oh, it is <em>entirely</em> your fault,” Remus said, dropping his voice low as his touch on Sirius’ waist steadied and tightened. “You picked that suit <em>knowing</em> I’d want to take it off.”</p><p>“Next time, I’ll wear something loose, so you won’t have to put in so much work,” Sirius smiled, working his hands around Remus’ neck and pulling him in close. “There will be a next time, won’t there?” he asked suddenly, his bright voice falling to an anxious whisper.</p><p>“Have you forgotten already?” Remus hummed. “You <em>belong</em> to me, Sirius Black.” Sirius softened in Remus’ arms. “And I want to make love to you, <em>only </em>to you, for the rest of my life.”</p><p>“Kiss me goodnight, Moony,” Sirius requested in a soft, saccharine tone.</p><p>“Goodnight, Padfoot,” Remus said, pressing his lips to Sirius’, full and deep. It was a shorter kiss than either of them wanted. As Remus drove up the long driveway, he drove slower than usual, giving them both time to button and fasten and redress. With one last look of longing, Sirius got out of the car and strode up to the front door without a backward glance.</p><p>Before they had left for the party, Remus had the foresight to stash his uniform in the trunk of the car and he took some time to change in the garage once he’d parked. The laundry facilities were right inside the house, adjacent to the garage, so Remus stowed the suit he’d borrowed from Sirius in an empty machine until he could clean it the next day.</p><p>Once back in his uniform, he made the trek across the grounds to the butler’s quarters and was not at all surprised to find that his father had waited up for him. It wasn’t dreadfully late, but since they were up before dawn every day, he and Remus habitually went to bed early.</p><p>“How was it?” Lyall asked and Remus tightened his jaw.</p><p>“Fine,” he spoke through clenched teeth. He was such a bad liar.</p><p>“Did something happen?” Lyall moved to stand, but Remus took a step back, worried that if his father got too close, he would be able to <em>smell</em> Sirius on him, in the lingering traces of Sirius’ cologne and the obvious odor of cigarette smoke, despite that Remus had changed clothes, despite that Sirius hadn’t smoked the whole time they were gone. It was in his hair, at <em>least</em>.</p><p>Still, he had to come up with something. Some lie that would make his father believe that nothing had happened between him and Sirius. As much as he hated lying to his father, Sirius was worth it. And the risk of getting caught again had to be cut down until it was nonexistent. </p><p>Thinking quickly, Remus blurted out a half-truth. “He was with a girl. At the party.”</p><p>“Oh,” Lyall said on an outward breath, stopping dead. “Oh, son, I’m sorry.”</p><p>“I’m … I’m going to bed,” Remus said, gritting his teeth and shaking his head just before disappearing up the stairs and locking his bedroom door behind him. Any guilt that was in his chest was washed away when Remus pictured Sirius lying in his lap, spent and content.</p><p>Under a yawn, he shed the uniform he’d just put on and slipped into bed, stretching out the kinks in the muscles of his back from contorting desperately in the small space of the Rolls Royce cab. As he drifted off, he dreamt of Sirius, wearing bear claw slippers. Completely naked.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>We can pretend we're wanting different things and then</em>
</p><p>
  <em>We can pretend we'll never end up here, end up here again</em>
</p><p> </p><p>The scream of his alarm came all too soon, and Remus let out a louder than usual groan in frustration and fatigue as he smashed the button to silence it. Despite the weariness in his body and the heaviness of his eyelids, Remus smiled, knowing he was waking to see Sirius.</p><p>In his haste to put his uniform on, his collar was turned up, his tie was crooked, his waistcoat was buttoned improperly, and his hair was still vastly unkempt from having Sirius run his fingers through it so many times the night before. None of it mattered. Only Sirius.</p><p>At the bottom of the stairs, his father was waiting for him, as he’d been doing the last several days, since Remus wasn’t allowed to be alone with Sirius. With last night’s lie still in the forefront of his mind, Remus began weaving another, hoping it would be enough.</p><p>“Da, I don’t think you …” he paused to take a convincingly deep, burdened breath. “I don’t think you need to worry about coming with me to wake Sirius this morning.”</p><p>For a moment, his father looked on in worry. “Are you sure you’ll be alright?”</p><p>“It’s my job,” Remus said, chewing his bottom lip. “I’ll get used to it.” The guilt surged in Remus’ stomach so bitterly that Remus winced as his father took him into his arms.</p><p>“Just let me know. Whatever you need. I’ll manage Master Sirius today if you need some time away from him,” he offered, but Remus shook his head, letting out a prolonged sigh.</p><p>“I’ll be fine. This is nothing I wasn’t expecting,” Remus said, entirely truthful. He knew they would end up here – sneaking around, lying to their parents, unable to stay away.</p><p>With a supportive nod, Lyall clapped Remus on the back and walked him to the back door. The mansion loomed against the purple and pink of the approaching sunrise and Remus found it quite difficult to maintain the dejection on his face when all he felt was elation.</p><p> </p><p>As Remus opened the door to Sirius’ bedroom, the darkness enveloped him like an old friend and he slipped into it, sure to lock the door behind him. Unlike every other morning, however, Remus didn’t draw the curtains first. Instead, he went to Sirius’ bed.</p><p>Through the little strips of light from the split of the heavy curtains, Remus’ eyes found Sirius in the dark, lying in his bed with the sheets tangled around him. With his heart moving into his throat at the thought of having Sirius all to himself, Remus leaned in close.</p><p>“Good morning, Padfoot,” he whispered, letting his fingers dust down Sirius’ face as he brushed the dark hair from it. His touch moved down to Sirius’ lips, parting them delicately.</p><p>“Oh, <em>Moony</em>,” Sirius hummed, and Remus felt the echo of it in his hips. “Good morning to you, too.” Suddenly, Sirius awoke fully, with a start, sitting straight up to survey the room. When he found it was still completely dark, his silver gaze returned to Remus. “Where’s Lyall?”</p><p>“He <em>might</em> be under the impression that you were with Pavonia at the party last night and he <em>might</em> also think that I am inconsolably heartbroken over it,” Remus said, baring his teeth, unsure of how Sirius would feel about Remus fabricating an entire story to cover their tracks.</p><p>“So it’s just you?” Sirius confirmed. Remus nodded.</p><p>“My father went to wake your parents and I imagine he’ll start breakfast straightaway after that,” Remus said, his finger still hovering over Sirius’ lips. Before Remus could even try to proposition him, Sirius’ hands were already on Remus’ face, pulling him in close. Their mouths met in a violent, frenzied clash of urge and ache as Remus moved hastily onto the bed.</p><p>“How much time do we have?” Sirius asked between Remus’ tongue in his mouth.</p><p>“Ten minutes,” Remus panted back, his hands moving down Sirius’ bare waist to find nothing at all, to find that Sirius had slept absolutely naked. “Oh my <em>God</em>, Padfoot.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Sirius groaned, his voice still heavy with sleep. “The way you say that name …”</p><p>“<em>Is</em> it weird?” Remus asked in mild concern, throwing back sheets until Sirius was totally and completely exposed beneath him. “Oh,” he expelled all the air from his lungs, his ravenous gaze roving over the full picture he’d only seen in pieces. “Jesus Christ, you’re <em>so</em> fucking pretty.” </p><p>“Touch me, Moony, I’ve been hard all goddamn night,” Sirius begged, taking Remus’ hand and moving it over his naked cock. “And please, for the love of God, call me Padfoot like that again, because it fucks me up.” With his hand forming a loose fist around Sirius’ cock, sliding against the friction of skin on skin, Remus pressed his lips deep into Sirius’ belly.</p><p>“<em>Padfoot</em>,” he whispered into Sirius’ skin, kissing openly and languidly with his tongue, but with fire and haste in his path as his mouth moved in an obviously direct line to Sirius’ hip.</p><p>“For fuck’s sake, Remus,” Sirius whined, already short of breath. “Again. <em>Please</em>.”</p><p>“I’ll say it however many times you want,” Remus growled, sucking sharply onto the plush skin just inside Sirius’ gaunt hipbone, leaving Sirius writhing underneath his lips. “But my mouth is about to be rather busy. So, tell me how you want it and I’ll make it <em>worth</em> more than one.”</p><p>“Say it with my cock on your lips,” Sirius requested in a subdued voice, as if he were hesitant to make demands, despite his fingers winding fiercely into Remus’ hair. Despite all the time Remus spent serving Sirius in a professional capacity, bending to Sirius’ whim to fulfill fantasy was something else entirely, and Remus could get high on giving Sirius what he wanted.</p><p>“Fuck,” Remus hissed, unsettling Sirius in his hand and bringing the tip of Sirius’ cock to his lips, placing a few open, sloppy kisses to his swollen skin. With his lips parted around the ridge of the head of Sirius’ cock, Remus spoke, watching Sirius with dedication. “Padfoot.”</p><p>Sirius’ mouth went wide, his shoulders stretching and his neck craning backward, his eyes fluttering closed as they raised to the ceiling. “Oh God, Remus,” he called into the dark.</p><p>“I want to hear you tell me what you want,” Remus commanded, and the intensity of his voice left a simmering echo in Sirius’ skin, his thighs stretched out wide and lecherous.</p><p>“I want you to suck my cock, Moony,” Sirius admitted, apparently surprised by the way his brazenness was received in Remus – by the tightening of Remus’ grip, the widening of Remus’ mouth, the unheeded motion of Remus’ tongue as it swirled over the tip of Sirius’ cock.</p><p>“Fuck, yes,” Remus mumbled onto Sirius’ skin, kissing down the shaft of Sirius’ cock as his fingers swirled in the residue of his mouth at the tip. “Tell me what else, <em>anything</em> else.”</p><p>“I want to sneak into your bedroom tonight so you can fuck me properly,” Sirius said suddenly on a violent exhale as Remus let Sirius sink deeply into his throat. After a few achingly slow strokes, Remus pulled up with a readied reply, speaking with his lips to Sirius’ cock.</p><p>“Then I’ll make it happen,” Remus stated simply, leaving Sirius to gasp in a large breath of air. As Remus went to return Sirius’ cock to his mouth, he paused, adding. “Can you stay quiet?”</p><p>“<em>Yes</em>, Moony,” Sirius promised obediently, his voice already hushed, already silenced, and it unsettled Remus in a way that he was unprepared for, but he maintained his composure.   </p><p>“Good,” Remus hummed, kissing and nipping at Sirius’ head. “You’ll have to.” As he softly moved his lips over the frenulum of Sirius’ cock again and again, with Sirius writhing almost noiselessly underneath him, save for hushed breaths, Remus added, “Oh, <em>just</em> like that.”</p><p>“Remus,” Sirius spoke carefully into the dark. “Eight minutes.”</p><p>“Shit,” Remus hissed, reminded of their self-imposed time limit. With frenzy in his mouth, he buried Sirius deep within it, choking on the elegant length being pressed in all at once.</p><p>It became clear that Sirius had deliberately used the time lapsed to spur Remus into desperate action, because he quickly spilled out into Remus’ mouth, warm and viscous, in only a few more strokes, his skin fluttering underneath Remus’ hands, his lungs heaving Remus’ name.</p><p>“Oh my God, Moony,” he spoke in a whimpering howl, his back arched lithely and his thighs tight around Remus’ ears as he came, filling Remus’ throat with a sustained climax.</p><p>With a quick swallow and a short, thick breath, Remus dove in to assail Sirius with a rough kiss, slipping his tongue through Sirius’ teeth. “God, I want you so fucking much right now.”</p><p>“Tonight, Moony,” Sirius reminded him. “Go. Don’t get caught.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Remus repeated, kissing Sirius once more before bolting from the room.   </p><p> </p><p>“Padfoot, I can’t do this right now, my – oh, fuck <em>me</em>,” Remus groaned, his thought interrupted as Sirius pushed him against the wall in the empty hallway, nestling between his legs and delicately slipping his tongue between Remus’ lips. “We’re supposed to be <em>careful</em>.”</p><p>“Your father is downstairs with the caterer, we have enough time for <em>one</em> kiss,” Sirius argued, pushing Remus so hard against the wall that he nearly lifted him from the floor.</p><p>“This isn’t <em>just</em> a kiss,” Remus whispered, already panting as Sirius slid his thumb up the length of Remus’ throat, coaxing his head to the ceiling to open the space for Sirius’ lips.</p><p>“Well, I’ve got to make it last,” Sirius spoke between sloppy kisses against the strongly protruding Adam’s apple of Remus’ throat. “Your father and mine will expect us at this party.”</p><p>“Didn’t he already acquire Slughorn Pharmaceuticals? Isn’t this party redundant?” Remus asked, trying to wind his fingers into Sirius’ hair and snarling at the realization that Sirius still had his hair pinned tightly back into a round bun, the way his mother had taught him to keep it.</p><p>“It’s all <em>but</em> acquired. The party should seal it.” The words in Sirius’ mouth were clipped as he kept them as brief as possible. All the more time for his lips to touch Remus’ skin. “But that means my father will be expecting everything to be perfect, which means I will have to be within arm’s reach of him at all times <em>and</em> it means your father will expect the same of you.”</p><p>Remus let out a heavy sigh, and only part of it was out of satisfaction at the way Sirius’ lips had traveled up behind his ear. “The party will run late. I’ll have to help my father clean up.”</p><p>“No, no, I’ll tell my father to send you both home as soon as it’s over,” Sirius said, his voice taking on that manic sort of quality it did when he was busy plotting, when his brain was working faster than his mouth could follow. “He gets very … generous when he’s drunk.”</p><p>“What time should I expect you?” Remus smiled. “You’re still coming over, right?”</p><p>A laugh burst from Sirius’ throat. “Are you kidding? I’m already plotting all the things I want you to do to me tonight and how <em>in God’s name</em> I’m going to be quiet about it.”</p><p>“You should come over as soon as you can, then,” Remus hummed. “Because I’ve got a list of my own and we’re going to have to get <em>right</em> to work if we want to fit it all in.”</p><p>“Oh, it’ll fit,” Sirius said with a filthy smirk, eyebrow raised high. With a playful roll of his eyes, Remus pushed Sirius away from him, but Sirius moved back in, pinning Remus to the wall and eliciting a sharp grunt from Remus’ lungs at the sudden pressure. He bit down on his lip.</p><p>“Fuck,” Remus muttered, eyes traveling over Sirius’ patent expression.</p><p>“See you at the party,” Sirius said in a fiendish whisper, leaning in to unsettle Remus’ lips with his teeth before pulling back and sauntering down the hallway, his hand trailing after him.</p><p>Remus took a long, deep breath as he watched him leave. “Fuck.”</p><p> </p><p>Throughout the rest of the day, Sirius had been conspicuously absent, and Remus was fairly certain it was deviously intentional. It left Remus aching just for the sight of him, just to catch the remnant of the scent of his cigarettes diffuse in the air as he passed.</p><p>It wasn’t until after a large majority of the guests had already arrived that Remus was gifted with the sight of Sirius descending the opulent stairs in the foyer where the party was being held. For a moment, Remus forgot not to stare. He often forgot not to stare.</p><p>His dark hair wasn’t in that restricting bun his mother preferred, but in the same loose topknot he’d fashioned the night before at the Malfoy manor, the shorter pieces in the front falling in front of the silver gaze behind rounded frames, surveying the room. As he moved down the curved staircase, his focus diverted to rolling the sleeves of his pressed, white shirt to his elbow, uncovered by the lack of a suit jacket over his fitted wool waistcoat. At his throat, the gold necktie shimmered against his pale skin, lighting his face like treasure and fortune.</p><p>In seconds, his gaze had fallen upon Remus’ and the briefest of smiles graced the pale pink of his lips before he purposefully drew his attention away. Remus did the same, but his intention led him to the bottom of the stairs, positioned for the impression of coincidence.</p><p>Surrounded by guests and holding a tray of hors d'oeuvres, Remus could only nod in Sirius’ direction, but Sirius took it a step further. With his entrepreneurial smile, Sirius eased into the group standing just in front of Remus and slipped into their conversation effortlessly.</p><p>As he talked, his voice was airy and diplomatic and rehearsed, the way it was when he was on the phone with a client or when he was working to convince his father to do something his way. More than once, Sirius reached over to grab a caviar tartlet and <em>accidentally</em> brushed his fingers over Remus’ knuckles, without a grain of suspicion arising in any of the guests.</p><p>Still, Remus was on the clock, so eventually, he had to move around the room or go into the kitchen to exchange his tray or refill a cocktail or two. No matter where he was in the room, he found that he was rarely outside of the length of Sirius’ reach, as Sirius consistently sampled anything Remus was holding just for an excuse to feel the heat of Remus’ skin.</p><p>In fact, Remus was so focused on the subtle touches of Sirius’ fingers than when he reached out and held Remus by the upper arm directly, Remus nearly came out of his skin.</p><p>“Remus, be a dear and refill Dr. Slughorn’s whiskey sour,” Sirius requested, taking the glass from Slughorn and setting it onto Remus’ tray. With a nod, Remus moved toward the kitchen and was absolutely delighted to hear Sirius add, “Actually, I’ll just come along, I’m in need of a martini, myself. Doctor, I’m anxious to hear more about your research when I return.”</p><p>On their way to the kitchen, Remus glanced surreptitiously around the room until, with great elation, he found his father on the other side of it, who was paying more attention to the inebriated (yet apparently amusing) guest that was raving loudly about his delicious appetizers.</p><p>Once in the kitchen, Remus set his tray down and took Sirius by the wrist, pulling him into the narrow butler’s pantry that connected to the formal dining room. Without warning, he ably lifted Sirius onto the countertop before taking Sirius by the face and kissing him deeply.</p><p>“Since when do you drink martinis?” Remus spoke into Sirius’ waiting mouth.</p><p>“It makes people think you’re important if you tell them you drink martinis,” he said with a roguish grin as Remus pulled him back to admire the sight of him again, without restraint.</p><p>“Look at you,” Remus gushed. “God, <em>look</em> at you.” Sirius laughed but Remus could feel the heat of a blush in his skin. As Remus’ kiss spread down Sirius’ throat, he craned his neck.</p><p>“The suit I wore last night was nicer than this, Moony,” Sirius said, breathing sharply.</p><p>“You say that like I didn’t fuck you in the car last night with <em>that suit</em> being a major contributing factor,” Remus hummed into his skin, and Sirius whimpered a bit. “But <em>this</em>?” he said with a trembling growl. “With the sleeves rolled up and the fitted waistcoat? God <em>damn</em>.”</p><p>“I think you just say this about everything I wear,” Sirius laughed, cheeks pink.</p><p>“Or don’t wear,” Remus corrected as he took a mind-clearing breath, pulling Sirius from the countertop and unruffling his shirt collar, straightening his gold tie. “It’s just <em>you</em>, honestly.”</p><p>A maudlin smile moved over Sirius’ lips as he looked at Remus through hooded lids and darkened eyes. “And you for me, Moons. Except I haven’t gotten that <em>full</em> view yet.”</p><p>“Moons?” Remus rose an eyebrow, smile mirrored on his face. “I think I like that.”</p><p>“Yeah?” Sirius grinned as Remus pushed open the swinging door of the butler’s pantry and began to move into the kitchen. “Good to know, I’ll add it to the list of things I’ll be calling out later tonight when you’re fuc-” As the kitchen door began to open, Remus slammed a hand over Sirius’ still open mouth and shoved him violently back into the butler’s pantry.</p><p>“Remus?” Lyall asked as he came into the kitchen to find Remus standing at attention in front of the swinging door of the butler’s pantry, his lips pressed shut. “Everything alright?”</p><p>“Fine, just fine,” Remus said far too quickly. “Getting a whiskey sour for Dr. Slughorn and a martini for Sirius. Just looking for the … cocktail shaker,” he lied through his teeth, hoping that he imagined the suspicious narrowing of his father’s eyes in his direction.</p><p>“It’s in the pantry,” Lyall said, pointing to where Sirius was hiding.</p><p>“I must’ve overlooked it,” Remus shrugged, trying to fall back into the pantry with ease while still trying not to fling the door wide open to reveal Sirius standing behind it. With a wince and widened eyes, Sirius handed Remus the cocktail shaker, glancing around for a place to hide.</p><p>“If he comes in here, we’re fucked, Moony,” Sirius whispered, but Remus shook his head.</p><p>“Just slip into the dining room and back out into the party. He’ll never know you weren’t there,” Remus said, taking only a moment to lean in and kiss Sirius delicately before emerging again from the pantry. “Found it this time,” Remus laughed lightly, holding up the metal canister.</p><p>“Speaking of Sirius, I didn’t see him when I came in,” Lyall said and Remus swallowed hard. Half of that swallow was intentional, and Remus followed it with a dramatic inhale.</p><p>“I’ve … I’ve been trying not to pay attention to what Sirius does at parties,” he said softly, blinking rapidly to give the impression that he was fighting tears. Lyall looked apologetic.</p><p>“I’m sorry, Rem,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought him up.”</p><p>“It’s unavoidable, Da,” Remus shrugged. “It’s my job.”</p><p>Lyall let out a burdened breath. “If I could’ve saved enough to send you to uni, I –”</p><p>“Don’t,” Remus said, pulling his father into a hug. “Don’t blame yourself for this. It’s not your fault I fell in love with Sirius. And even after everything that’s happened, I can’t imagine <em>not</em> looking after him. I want to be here, Da. With you and Mum.” <em>And Sirius</em>, he added silently.</p><p> “But it’s not fair,” Lyall said, his voice argumentative. “I got to go to uni and meet your mum and have those life experiences and you …” Remus interrupted, pulling away from his father to prepare the whiskey sour and martini he was supposed to have already made.</p><p>“And I got bitten,” Remus reminded him. “I couldn’t have gone to uni, even if we didn’t have to spend my tuition fund on wolfsbane. How would I have endured the moon in a <em>dorm</em>?”</p><p>An angry growl formed in Lyall’s throat. “I <em>know</em>. But how can I expect you to have a life and make friends and meet a girl – sorry, <em>boy</em> – if you’re stuck in the mansion every day?”</p><p>“Just so you know,” Remus said with a mischievous grin. “I could <em>also</em> meet a girl.”</p><p>“Oh. Alright, then,” Lyall said, rather casually, and it send Remus into a fit of laughter, grateful for a father that was so understanding, even if he was the one trying to keep Remus and Sirius apart. As Remus poured Sirius’ martini, he looked over at his father with a smile.  </p><p>“You’re thinking about it too much,” Remus said with a sigh of contentment. “Right now, I’m where I want to be. If I wanted to go out and meet new people, I <em>would</em>.”</p><p>“But …” Lyall floundered. “If you’re always around Master Sirius, then …”</p><p>“Then, yes, it means I’ll continue to be in love with him,” Remus said on a deep breath, setting the whiskey sour onto the tray he’d brought in with him. “And I’m okay with that.”</p><p>On a breath, Lyall started to argue, “You’re okay with …” he paused.</p><p>“For now, yes,” Remus finished the thought for him, handing the tray to his father. “I’m happy just to take care of him.” His father opened his mouth to speak, but Remus shook his head, leading his father to the kitchen door. “Don’t think about it. Take this to Dr. Slughorn.”</p><p>The very second after he watched his father walk across the foyer, Remus heard a crash come from the butler’s pantry and he raced back only to find it empty, a stack of silver-coated serving trays scattered across the floor. Had Sirius been listening? How much of that conversation had he heard? Had he heard Remus admit he was in love with him? Worse still was the idea that someone <em>other</em> than Sirius had just heard Remus admit those feelings aloud.</p><p>Quickly, Remus snatched the half-full martini glass and swept open the kitchen door, amber eyes immediately scanning the room and finding not a single face looking toward him. In the crowd, Remus searched out the familiar pair of silver eyes and didn’t find them. His attention moved over to his father, who was luckily being withheld by a verbose Horace Slughorn.</p><p>Trying not to appear desperate, Remus moved around the corner to the door that opened from the formal dining room only to find Sirius standing in a circle of guests, but not contributing to their conversation whatsoever. Remus sided up next to him, passing the martini.</p><p>“How much of that did you hear?” Remus asked in a hushed voice. The pause for Sirius to take a sip from the martini felt like an eternity. If Sirius knew the truth of how Remus felt, this could all be over. They’d admitted a lot of intimate things in the car the night before, but this was <em>love</em>, and love was terrifying. Everything else had been said in the wake of orgasm.</p><p>“Just the part about you not being able to go to university,” Sirius said, mumbling on the wide rim of the martini glass. “And that wolfsbane costs enough to drain your tuition fund.”</p><p>“You didn’t go to uni either,” Remus stated to try to sway Sirius’ pity.</p><p>“I was given the <em>choice</em> and I chose work,” Sirius clarified. “You were <em>not</em> given a choice.”</p><p>A sarcastic scoff pressed from Remus’ throat. “Do you think I grew up thinking that I’d be able to go to university <em>knowing</em> I turn into a monster every month?” Remus said, the laugh in his throat more resigned than bitter. “It’s not like it surprised me, Padfoot. I knew what to expect.”</p><p>“That doesn’t make it fair,” Sirius said firmly, turning to face Remus directly.</p><p>“No, I know it doesn’t, but it’s the reality of the situation I’m in,” Remus responded, running his fingers through his unruly hair. “I’ve gotten used to it over the last twenty years.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t have <em>had</em> to get used to it,” Sirius barked, a little louder than Remus wished it would’ve been. “If nothing else, we could’ve helped you pay for the wolfsbane.”</p><p>Remus laughed sarcastically, <em>also</em> a little louder than it should’ve been. “And tell your father what? That a murderous hellion was the one responsible for looking after his son?”</p><p>“Don’t you <em>dare</em>,” Sirius hissed, grabbing Remus’ wrist tightly. “You have never hurt anyone in your <em>life</em>. Don’t pretend like you and the Wolf are the same creature.”</p><p>“We <em>are</em>, Padfoot, whether you want to see that or not,” Remus said, not registering the amount of attention their argument was drawing. “He only draws on what’s already there.” The anger flashed in Sirius’ silver eyes as his grip on Remus’ wrist tightened, drawing him closer.</p><p>“<em>He’s</em> not the one who whispers my name in the morning as he slips the glasses onto my nose even though he knows full well I can find them on my own,” Sirius argued, teeth clenched, words seething between them. “<em>He’s</em> not the one who helps me ditch work when he knows I’ve exhausted myself.” With purpose, Sirius dropped his voice low. “<em>He’s</em> not the one who fucked me in the car last night. <em>He’s</em> not the one who said he wanted to make love to me forever.”</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus swallowed, suddenly aware of all the eyes glancing toward them.</p><p>“I said I was <em>yours</em>, Remus Lupin. <em>Not</em> his,” Sirius finally finished on an outward breath, leaving Remus to draw it in with his surprise. “I know it’s a package deal, but don’t you fucking dare try to convince me that you are any less worthy of love just because <em>he’s</em> in there with you.”  </p><p>As his shoulders went slack and his lungs emptied, Remus repeated, “<em>Love</em>?”</p><p>Realization widened Sirius’ eyes, though they didn’t sway from the hold they had on Remus’ gaze. With his hand still on Remus’ wrist, Sirius tensed his arm, as if he meant to pull Remus in closer, though they were closer than they should’ve been in the first place. And unless Remus was mistaken, was that a nearly imperceptible nod of Sirius’ head? Was he <em>agreeing</em>?</p><p>As if he suddenly remembered where they were, as if he suddenly realized they were surrounded by prying eyes, Sirius bared his teeth and ripped his hand away from Remus.</p><p>For the sake of appearances, Sirius spoke hastily, purposefully slurring his words, “It’s not your responsibility to keep me sober. Just get me another damn drink, for Christ’s sake.” For added effect, he stumbled as he walked away, liquor sloshing from his martini glass, and Remus was absolutely astonished as his ability to think so quickly on his feet and weave a story that showed Remus in a positive light as a thoughtful butler who worried for the one in his care.</p><p>As Remus expected, his father was soon by his side. “Everything alright?” And Remus could do nothing but carry on the story that Sirius had already set in motion.</p><p>“He’s just had a bit too much to drink,” Remus sighed heavily for the effect. “It wasn’t my place to try to moderate his behavior, but I …” he paused. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.”</p><p>While he watched Sirius walk away, a torrent of wandering thoughts flooded his brain, all stomping for his attention at once, and he couldn’t decide which of them to focus on first. The most important of them, perhaps, was the concern that Sirius was actually <em>angry</em> with him over this, over Remus’ resignation into his circumstance, over Remus’ acceptance of his condition.</p><p>Maybe the <em>second</em> point was the most important, but Remus refused to let it appear that way, refused to believe what he’d seen with his own eyes, heard with his own ears. Because that had been coincidence of phrase, not admission of devotion. It was Sirius trying to convey a point in simple terms without taking the time to avoid something that could be misconstrued, and here Remus was, misconstruing it. It wasn’t love. They were friends. With benefits. That was all.</p><p>Knowing that didn’t change the sharp wrenching of his heart as he watched Sirius travel back up the stairs, away from the party and away from Remus. This wasn’t the way tonight was supposed to go. They were supposed to steal away little moments until Sirius could sneak into Remus’ bedroom, where Remus could whisper his affection into the curve of Sirius’ throat.</p><p>“I thought you’d have made more progress than this,” a familiar voice said, just at Remus’ side, and Remus turned abruptly to find kind, hazel eyes behind thick, square frames.</p><p>“<em>James</em>,” Remus said with relief as James smiled and pulled him into a hug.</p><p>“I’d ask how you are, but you’re looking longingly at someone who is leaving the room, so I’d say things are not going so well,” he observed with a wince, the dimple puckering his cheek.</p><p>“Most of that was for show,” Remus shrugged, eyes still fixated on the stairs, though Sirius had long since disappeared around the corner, in the direction of his bedroom.</p><p>“I didn’t know you were … in his service,” James said, following Remus’ line of sight.</p><p>Remus swallowed. “Which is why he has to make excuses for himself when he …” he paused, not knowing quite how to phrase it, but James picked up right where he stopped.</p><p>“When he treats you a little too affectionately?” Remus nodded, letting out a breath.</p><p>“He shouldn’t have grabbed my hand just now, I shouldn’t have let him,” Remus said, scratching his fingers through the ever-lengthening stubble on his cheeks. “My father is already suspicious of everything we do. Only a few nights ago, he walked in on us in …” he paused again.</p><p>“In flagrante delicto?” James finished for him with a knowing smirk.</p><p>“Sort of,” Remus said, turning pink in the cheeks. “So we can’t be seen together.”</p><p>“And why not?” James asked with a scoff. “Why not just say … to hell with it?”</p><p>“Are you kidding?” Remus laughed bitterly. “If Master Orion ever found out I was <em>defiling</em> his son, he would brutally murder me and pay the police to classify it as a suicide. And if Lady Walburga found out, they would never even find my corpse.” He let out a long, slow breath.</p><p>The breath rumbled in James’ chest as he hummed over his thoughts. “I see.”</p><p>“They want to marry Sirius off to someone even more rich and powerful than he is, to use him to improve their status and deepen their pockets,” Remus said acridly, teeth clenched. “So if they found out he was shagging a <em>bloke</em>? They’d kill us both. It wouldn’t matter if he’s happy.”</p><p>“Isn’t he, though? Happy, I mean,” James asked carefully.</p><p>“When it’s just the two of us,” Remus sighed wistfully. “He certainly <em>looks</em> happy.”</p><p>James hummed again. “Then fuck it all. Run away together. Who gives a shit?” he said, laughing loudly and Remus couldn’t help but join in, albeit a bit softer than James.</p><p>“I take it your endeavors were more successful than my own,” Remus mused with a raised eyebrow and <em>immediately</em>, James’ gaze was across the room. When Remus glanced over to follow it, he found the redhaired girl, Lily, talking animatedly with Dr. Slughorn.</p><p>“She’s incredible, Remus, just incredible,” he gushed, sighing gratefully. “She’s half the reason we’re here.” He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Don’t tell your lover, but we’re trying to steal Slughorn out from under his family. The Black Firm is a pox on the business world.”</p><p>“I don’t even want to know,” Remus said, raising his hands in surrender, winking in James’ direction. “I heard nothing. I didn’t even see you here tonight at all.”</p><p>The thick eyebrows rose on James’ dark skin, a teasing smile playing at the corner of his lips. “Won’t Sirius be cross with you if he finds out? I don’t want to get you in trouble.”</p><p>“This one is Master Orion’s merger,” Remus said, cocking his head to the side. “Sirius only gets invested if it’s something he wants for himself.” With a smirk, James’ hazel eyes darkened as he keenly adjusted his black, square frames, looking at Remus with a tell-tale expression.</p><p>“Oh, I <em>know</em>,” James smiled. “I saw that for myself last night in the way he looks at you when you’re not paying attention.” An immediate surge of red filled Remus’ cheeks as James continued. “So, if you ever find yourself in need of a new employment opportunity, you know where to find me,” he said as he clapped Remus on the shoulder. “After all, they can’t very well fire you for inappropriate behavior with their son if you no longer work for them, can they?” he said with a wink as he went walking off toward where Lily was charming Horace Slughorn.</p><p>Remus thought back to the business card stashed in his room with James Potter’s phone number printed across the top, wondering and wishing. “I suppose they can’t.”</p><p> </p><p>Not long after Remus’ conversation with James, the party dwindled as the hour grew late and, just as Sirius had said, Master Orion had sent Remus and Lyall home without having to stay all night to clean up. He’d reminded them with a slur that the mess would wait for them.</p><p>Still, Remus didn’t care about Master Orion’s lack of tact. The aftermath of the party would indeed wait until morning. The only thing that mattered to Remus was the all-consuming apprehension in waiting to find out if Sirius would still come over that night.</p><p>For over an hour, Remus waited in his kitchen, sitting on the same countertop that he had lifted Sirius onto not so many nights before that one. From that window in the back door, he could see Sirius’ bedroom window. The light in Sirius’ room had been out all night.</p><p>Well past midnight, just after Remus had let his head fall into his hands in acceptance of Sirius’ absence, there came a quiet rap against the window of the door. When Remus looked up, he didn’t wash out the relief in his expression, he didn’t try to feign indifference about seeing Sirius outside his door. In fact, he tore open the door so fast, it clattered on the hinges.</p><p>“Hi,” he said, breathless already. A quiet smile passed over Sirius’ lips, eyes shimmering behind their frames, tangled hair carelessly tossed to one side of his face.</p><p>“Hi,” he replied simply, leaning inside the door frame.</p><p>“I thought … I thought you might be angry with me,” Remus stated honestly. There was amused confusion in Sirius’ expression, in the furrowing of his brows as he smiled.</p><p>“I <em>am</em> angry,” Sirius clarified, the amusement in his voice rotting into frustration. “But not with you. I’m angry at the odds. I’m angry that, of all fucking people, <em>you</em> are the one who has to live with this. And that you’ve had to live with it mostly alone, even while I was looking on.”</p><p>The smile on Remus’ face shifted. “Why do you say that? Me, of all people?”</p><p>“Because shouldn’t karma have stepped in?” Sirius hissed angrily. “Or fate or God or whatever the <em>fuck</em> governs the chaos of the world, because why is it fair that it happened to someone so caring and so creative and so clever and so charming?” he growled, the words rolling from his tongue nearly faster than he could speak them, his fingers curling into tight fists at his sides. With a smile at Sirius’ veiled compliments, Remus took Sirius’ face into his hands.</p><p>“I won’t say it happened for a reason, but it happened,” he said, settling his forehead against Sirius’ and breathing Sirius in to find the overwhelming odor of cigarette smoke and expensive bourbon, as if Sirius had done nothing but drink and smoke since he left the party.</p><p>“I <em>know</em>,” Sirius said emphatically. “And I know I can’t change it, but I –”</p><p>“You’re welcome to take my mind off of it,” Remus offered. “Every now and then.”</p><p>Immediately, Sirius drew his gaze up to find Remus already watching him and a smile uncurled from his pursed lips. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually, and I’ve come up with a plan of sorts.” The mischief in his expression had returned and Remus was relieved to see it.</p><p>“Yeah?” Remus smiled, glad that the conversation had shifted.</p><p>“You and I have been stuck on these grounds all our lives,” he said, his hands finding their way down to Remus’ waist, though he kept Remus’ forehead pressed against his own. “We didn’t get to do all the things that kids usually do.” His hands moved up the back of Remus’ shirt.</p><p>“Like sneak over to their boyfriend’s house in the middle of the night?” Remus asked with a knowing grin. When Sirius’ mouth fell open and a surprised, short breath moved from his lips, Remus’ smile faltered as he realized, with a hard swallow, that he’d just called Sirius his boyfriend. And they were definitely not supposed to be anything more than friends.</p><p>Still, the way Sirius’ grip tightened on his bare skin was unmistakable and the manic, stuttering breath that he sucked in was … interesting. When he spoke, his words spilled out in a frenzy. “We’re <em>absolutely</em> going to circle back to that, because we didn’t technically define what this thing is since we <em>did</em> go on a date, which is outside of the boundary of friends with benefits, and I didn’t think you –” Remus had to stop him, just to get Sirius to breathe again.</p><p>“Take a breath,” Remus laughed. “We can circle back later,” he said, grateful for the opportunity to avoid discussing this topic, though Sirius showed very little dissent over it.</p><p>“Right,” Sirius said, gulping down a lungful of air before letting some of it out as he began to smile again. “Come with me,” he said, finding Remus’ hand and pulling him outside.</p><p>Against the side of his house leaned an old, rusted bicycle, a wire basket in the front that held a canvas bag, stuffed full with what looked like a blanket. With a glimmer in his eyes, magnified by the lenses of his glasses, Sirius reached out and rang the bell. It rattled with a dull clank, but Sirius’ smile remained unfettered. In curiosity, Remus cocked his head to one side.</p><p>As Sirius climbed over the bicycle frame, he nodded to the rack over the back-tire, indicating for Remus to climb on behind him. “I’m taking you on an adventure.”</p><p>Shaking his head in bewilderment to cover up the anticipation in his face, Remus climbed onto the bicycle, pressing his feet onto the back-tire pegs and wrapping his hands around Sirius’ waist, his chin perched atop Sirius’ shoulder. In a whisper, Sirius said, “Hang onto me, Moons.”</p><p>The moon was just a sliver in the black sky, covering the grounds in shadow, but Sirius navigated through the gardens and the terraces and the courtyards as easily as if it were the middle of the day. They flew through the estate with the wind in their ears and Remus let his eyes flutter closed as his hands snaked up Sirius’ chest. Before long, the mansion was lost in the distance and it was just like it had been the night before, the two of them alone in the world.</p><p>The gardens of the Black estate took up only a fraction of the thousand acres to the Black family name. Most of the grounds were woods and remained unventured, undiscovered. Despite that, Sirius drove the bicycle directly into those woods, following a faint foot-worn path.</p><p>The trail grew thick in some places, and branches caught in their hair and scratched at their faces, but Sirius was undeterred. The further he pushed ahead, the darker it became with the canopy overhead blocking what little moonlight there had been in the first place.</p><p>Before Remus could even ask if he knew where he was going, the way ahead brightened in front of them as the umbrella of trees opened up, revealing a clear, calm lake. The tranquil shoreline crept from underneath the trees and spread out as silver sand and black liquid.</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus breathed out, hopping from his seat to stand in full view of the hidden lake, in awe of the perfect reflection of the moonlight on the glassy surface of the water.</p><p>“Regulus and I found this here not long before he left,” he said, propping the bicycle against the trunk of a cypress tree. “I haven’t really been back since then.”</p><p>As Remus thought back to what Sirius had said before, his eyebrows furrowed. “But wait, what does this have to do with –” He looked back to see Sirius bent over, his knee to his chest, as he slipped the shoe from his foot. Then the other. And then his glasses. “Oh. Oh, <em>no</em>.”</p><p>Whatever mischief had been in Sirius’ silver eyes was now magnified tenfold, and Remus couldn’t tell if it was the reflection of the moonlight or the lake, but that silver in his eyes swirled like mercury, kinetic and chaotic. “It’s practically a rite of passage, Moony,” he grinned as he continued to take his clothes off, his shirt and trousers disregarded into the sand at his feet.</p><p>“We could be <em>caught</em>, you know,” Remus laughed as he kicked off his shoes anyway.</p><p>“We’re nearly a mile from the house,” Sirius argued, shedding the last of his clothes and gifting Remus with a prolonged view of every angle of his naked skin before wading into the water. “If you want to get technical, we could’ve been caught in the car <em>much</em> easier than here.”</p><p> “I still had most of my clothes on in the car, thank you very much,” Remus said, continuing his verbal dissent while he pulled the shirt from over his head, enjoying the way Sirius watched him do it. He took his time untying the drawstring of his joggers, savoring the sharp bite of Sirius’ teeth onto his bottom lip as he waited, splashing impatiently in the water.</p><p>“Don’t tell me you’re shy <em>now</em>, Remus,” Sirius hummed, a dangerous sting in his voice as his eyes greedily foraged across all the newly bare skin that he’d never before seen.</p><p>“No,” Remus smirked arrogantly. “I just like to watch your mouth water.”</p><p>“Fuck you,” Sirius said with a terrible grin, his tongue rolling over his teeth.</p><p>“Come on, baby, I wish you would,” Remus half-sang the Bowie lyric that Sirius had sung to him only the night before, though it felt like days since they’d been alone together. With his fingers tucked into the waist of his pants, Remus couldn’t help but tease Sirius that much further, sliding them down his hips agonizingly slowly, until Sirius was howling in frustration.</p><p>“Reeemuuuus,” Sirius called out, his head thrown back into the water. “<em>Please</em>.”</p><p>“Are you asking as my employer?” Remus asked sarcastically, a reminder of the first time Sirius had asked him to do something that was definitely outside of his job description.</p><p>“I’m asking as your boyfriend,” Sirius stated plainly, watching Remus carefully under an ardent focus. With a sharply raised brow and an equally sharp exhale, Remus drove the last article of his clothing down his thighs and stepped into the water, with the attention of Sirius Black, now his <em>boyfriend</em>, devotedly and hastily attempting to memorize every mark of his skin.</p><p>“I didn’t think we’d circle back to that so soon,” Remus said, wading into the water up to his hips and shivering at the cool water against his bare skin. From where Sirius stood, the dark water up to his chin, he let himself sink underneath the water for a moment before resurfacing, a little closer to Remus, combing his long, wet hair back with his fingers.</p><p>With Sirius a bit closer, he found Remus’ hand in the water, pulling him deeper. “After all the things we said to each other last night,” Sirius said, wrapping his arms around Remus’ neck and using Remus as his anchor, “I thought it was fairly obvious that we’re not just friends.”</p><p>“You did say you belong to me. More than once,” Remus said with a playful grin as Sirius turned his palms to Remus’ shoulders and pushed him underneath the water’s surface. When he came back up, he didn’t even have time to open his eyes before Sirius’ lips were pressed to his.</p><p>“It’s no heavier than telling someone you want to make love to them forever,” Sirius argued, his legs wrapping around Remus’ hips, leaving Remus to let out a soft groan at the feeling of Sirius pressed against him, his warmth starkly contrasted to the coolness of the water.</p><p>“Then I guess it’s settled,” Remus said, breathing into Sirius’ mouth in an effort to kiss him, but his mouth falling open desperately at the movement of Sirius’ hips. “We’re … dating.”</p><p>With an aching hum, Sirius drove his tongue into Remus’ mouth, kissing him with fire and ferocity, speaking as he came up for breath. “God, this is like my nineteen-year-old fantasy come to life,” he whispered into the hollows of Remus’ open, waiting mouth before falling back in.</p><p>“Please stop telling me you had a crush on me back then,” Remus begged, a discontented growl rolling up the back of his throat. “It only reminds me that we <em>wasted</em> a good part of the last decade not having sex.” In response, Sirius drove his fingers into Remus’ wet hair.</p><p>“I can’t help it, Moony,” he exhaled heavily. “I mean, surely you know by now that when you walked in on me with my hand between my legs, I was thinking about <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“Oh my fucking <em>God</em>,” Remus groaned, moving his hands down to Sirius’ arse to shift him up and down his hips, for the friction and the heat and the firmness of Sirius’ cock against him.</p><p>“You say you don’t want to reminisce, but it <em>feels</em> like you enjoy it quite a bit,” Sirius said with a cocky smirk, his hands still in Remus’ hair, his teeth nibbling on Remus’ bottom lip.</p><p>“Well, I won’t pretend like I didn’t fantasize about you letting me watch,” Remus admitted openly, thrusting against Sirius as hard as he could in the weightless water, leaving Sirius to take in a sharp breath at the sudden, rough stimulation, fingers tight in Remus’ hair.</p><p>“I’d let you watch now, but I don’t think that’s what you want,” Sirius said, his voice rattled and faulty, failing him in volume, but abundant in breath and tremble.</p><p>“No,” Remus admitted, holding Sirius’ hips tightly. “No, it’s not.” Less than delicately, Remus adjusted Sirius’ position against him, until his cock was sliding between Sirius’ thighs with every thrust. He balanced their weight to give Sirius’ length a few good strokes.</p><p>“And I want the same damn thing,” Sirius agreed, biting down on his lip.</p><p>“But you wanted it in my bedroom,” Remus said, leaning in to mouth at the sharp lines of Sirius’ Adam’s apple. “With my parents in the next room, because you’re a sadist.”</p><p>A sarcastic laugh barked from Sirius’ throat, but it drew into a tawdry moan that dissolved into the darkness. “No, that definitely makes me a masochist, because I wanted you to force me to be quiet. I mean, you did hear me say I want you to <em>hurt</em> me, right?”</p><p>“I heard,” Remus smirked, eyebrow flashing up aggressively as he turned his head and settled his teeth into the curve of Sirius’ neck, sucking and biting until Sirius was whining.</p><p>“Moony,” Sirius groaned, letting his head fall back into the water. “<em>Harder</em>.” Without increasing the pressure of his bite, Remus nuzzled his face further into Sirius’ skin to give the <em>impression</em> he had because, in truth, he’d draw blood if he clenched his teeth any harder.</p><p>Still, the way Sirius was arching his back, the way his dark hair was clinging to his wet skin, the way his silver eyes reflected the moonlight on the ripples of the dark waves left Remus struggling to subdue the voracity swelling in his chest. With Sirius begging him for it, it was all he could do to not give in to the howl of the Wolf that made him want to devour Sirius entirely.</p><p>“I’m not going to make it back to my bedroom, Sirius,” Remus said on the hollow breath that rolled over Sirius’ freshly bruised skin. With a touch that left Sirius shivering beneath it, Remus’ fingers brushed down the full length of Sirius’ spine, slipping underneath him.</p><p> “I had a feeling that would happen when I brought you out here,” he said, drifting away from Remus and pulling him back to the shoreline. As he moved elegantly from the water, Remus paused to watch him walk, to watch the way his hips swayed and swaggered. “You’re not a very patient man, Moony.” With a soft laugh, Remus stayed behind in the water, enjoying watching Sirius, totally naked, pull an overly large blanket from the bag in the bicycle basket.</p><p>“Well, you would know, since you’re my boyfriend and all,” Remus grinned wildly as Sirius spread the blanket across the sand, lying across it quite dramatically to grant Remus a view.</p><p>“And <em>as</em> your boyfriend,” Sirius said, cocking his eyebrow up as he propped his head up in his hand, lying on his side with one knee raised. “I’m begging you to hurry up and get your arse out of the water, so you can make love to me until the sun comes up.”</p><p>With a push against the water, Remus surged forward with an enthusiastic “Yes, sir,” that was met with a distressed expression from Sirius’ face, all squinted eyes and clenched teeth.</p><p>“You know, I used to like it when you called me sir, back when we weren’t allowed to do the things we’re doing,” he said, watching as Remus emerged from the black lake.</p><p>“We’re <em>still</em> not allowed to do the things we’re doing,” Remus reminded, eyebrow raised.</p><p>“It’s too formal now, it’s too … professional,” he sneered, but it melted from his expression, shifting into desire as Remus knelt onto the blanket in front of where he was lying.</p><p>“How about … yes, darling?” Remus offered, letting his hand follow the curve of Sirius’ waist, leaving Sirius to fall onto his back so that Remus was hovering over him.</p><p>“Oh, that’s <em>so</em> much better,” Sirius sighed contentedly as Remus kissed him.</p><p>“And you say <em>I’m</em> a sucker for pet names,” he laughed between kisses that grew more heated with every one that passed between them, until Remus pulled Sirius to his chest.  </p><p>As Remus buried his face into Sirius’ throat, Sirius laughed. “You practically melted into my hands when I called you Moony the first time,” he stated pointedly.</p><p>“If I recall,” Remus half-argued, gripping insistently onto Sirius’ bare hip. “Your <em>hands</em> were explicitly busy when this happened, which may have skewed the results a bit.”</p><p>“Oh,” Sirius said, feign sorrow in his voice. “Well, if you don’t <em>like</em> being my Moony …” his voice trailed off, knowingly, just waiting for the argument he knew would come.</p><p>“Fuck, alright, you win,” Remus huffed. “If you stop calling me Moony, I may die.”</p><p>“That’s what I thought you’d say,” Sirius grinned in victory, but it sucked back into his teeth as Remus’ mouth began moving down his chest, down his waist, over his hip.</p><p>“Since you know me so well,” Remus grinned a moment before settling his teeth onto Sirius’ sharp hipbone. “Why don’t you tell me what I’m about to ask you to do for me?”</p><p>A breath moved through Sirius’ teeth as he arched into Remus’ bite. “If I know you, and I <em>really</em> think I do, you’re going to ask me to keep talking while you do unspeakably filthy things to me, and I really don’t think that’s fair.” With a purposefully sinister smile, Remus glanced at him.</p><p>“Not fair?” Remus asked innocently, watching Sirius with devotion as he dragged his widened tongue along the tight muscle at the inside of Sirius’ hip. “Please, <em>elaborate</em>.”</p><p>“See, this is exactly what I mean, Re– oh, <em>Jesus</em>.” His thought was interrupted by Remus taking Sirius into his hand swiftly and delivering soft kisses to the head of his cock.</p><p>“Shall I give you a topic?” Remus asked, his kisses growing more open, more wet.</p><p>“<em>Please</em>,” Sirius swallowed, the snap of the wet breath that followed echoing out into the thick growth of trees that kept them safe and hidden from the rest of the Black family grounds.</p><p>“You said we didn’t get to do all the things that normal people get to do, so tell me all the things you wish we’d gotten to do when we were young,” he bargained between sloppy kisses.</p><p>“I’m not just going to <em>tell</em> you, Remus,” Sirius said, pushing his fingers through Remus’ wet hair as Remus deepened the length of Sirius in his mouth. “We’re <em>doing</em> all those things.”</p><p>“Oh, of course,” Remus hummed. “You’re <em>making</em> me do them. Like skinny dipping.”</p><p>“You seem fairly content with the outcome of this venture, Moony,” Sirius argued, arrogance in his voice, and Remus had to look up just to see the source of it on his face.</p><p>“Sometimes I hate that you know me so well,” Remus said, half a growl and half a laugh, before returning Sirius to his throat, his eyes rolling back with the pleasure of having Sirius between his teeth, having Sirius naked underneath him, having Sirius as his <em>boyfriend</em>.</p><p>“Which is why I know you’re going to enjoy doing this,” Sirius said, taking a moment to let out a profoundly weighted breath as Remus’ mouth fell into a steady rhythm.</p><p>With a thought, he pulled up, using his fingers to maintain the momentum. “Are we counting last night as something teenagers would do?” he asked, knowing the answer.</p><p>“Remus,” Sirius said flatly, rolling his eyes. “We had sex in my father’s car. Yes, <em>obviously</em> we’re counting that.” The inevitable smirk on his face undid his deadpan delivery.</p><p>“What else are we going to do to reclaim our youth?” Remus asked, winking playfully before he buried his face between Sirius’ legs again, much to Sirius’ moaning delight.</p><p>“You say that like we’re old men,” Sirius laughed, fondly carding his fingers through Remus’ hair, broken by an occasional tightening of his fist. “We’re not even twenty-five.”</p><p>“Isn’t that still too old for skinny dipping?” Remus teased.</p><p>“No,” Sirius huffed. “And it’s not too old for Truth or Dare, or smoking pot at midnight in my bedroom, or sneaking off to parties, or whatever the hell else we want to do.”</p><p>“All I want to do is find imaginative ways to get you off,” Remus said, expecting to look up to see the anticipation in Sirius’ face, but instead he found deliberate expectation.</p><p>“You act like that’s not the end goal of each of these scenarios,” Sirius said, spiking his eyebrow high. “Honestly, who do you think I am, Moony? I think of <em>everything</em>.” With one hand, he dug underneath the corner of the blanket, dangling a small, plastic bottle in his fingers.</p><p>“You certainly do,” Remus replied, licking his lips as he took the bottle from Sirius and delivering a single, inciteful gaze as he gave Sirius a command. “On your knees.”</p><p> With willful intention, Sirius replied, “Yes, sir,” under a swirling silver gaze, leaving Remus fighting against the predatory instinct that made him want Sirius’ throat in his teeth.</p><p>“Fuck,” he grumbled as Sirius obeyed the order. As soon as Sirius was knelt in front of him, Remus leaned forward and bit down sharply onto the soft skin of Sirius’ arse. With his hands busied with squeezing the contents of the bottle into them, he let his mouth wander.</p><p>“Remus, I …” Sirius started, but let out the breath instead of finishing his thought.</p><p>“Tell me,” Remus urged him, slipping a newly slick hand between Sirius’ legs and delivering a few easy strokes to Sirius’ length. An arch immediately went into Sirius’ back, his hips shifting upward, and Remus couldn’t help but kiss deeply into the crevice of Sirius’ skin.</p><p>“<em>Oh</em>,” Sirius exhaled heavily, his voice trembling and rattling. “That’s … oh, <em>God</em>.” With this quiet encouragement, Remus found himself mouthing at every part of this newly available skin, pulling Sirius to his mouth with one hand and stroking him with the other. He could feel his own warm breath circle back against his cheek, he could feel the stubble of his chin catch as he nipped gently at the backs of Sirius’ thighs, he could feel each muscle fluttering under his lips.</p><p>“Jesus, Sirius. <em>Fuck</em>,” he mumbled again, pressing his face into Sirius’ skin and letting his tongue lap indolently across the plush ring of muscle, savoring the way it sent a quiver into Sirius’ spine, a whine into his throat, an immediate racing in the rhythm of his breath.</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>,” he called out and it sounded like a warning. “Oh my … <em>God.</em>”</p><p>“Padfoot,” Remus whispered into his skin. “Call me by the name you love,” he asked, expending his breath with purpose through his nostrils, his tongue delivering ardent strokes.</p><p>Like he’d been trapping it in his chest, Sirius howled, “Oh, <em>fuck</em>, Moony,” in a desperate voice that left Remus pushing in deeper, driving his tongue in matching strokes to his fist as he moaned into Sirius’ naked skin. The hand on Sirius’ hip moved to Sirius’ cock so Remus could use his already saturated grip to palm his hardening erection, attempting to relieve some pressure.</p><p>“Fuck, <em>yes</em>,” he muttered before opening his mouth wide, kissing into Sirius as deeply as he was able, sloppy and wet and desperate. At the vibrations of Remus’ feral moan, and the insistent grip of his fist on Sirius’ cock, and the indecent slip of Remus’ tongue, Sirius shattered.</p><p>“Oh, God, <em>fuck</em> me, Moony, <em>please</em>,” he begged, <em>very</em> vocally, and Remus was suddenly grateful they hadn’t tried to do this in his bedroom because it took him considerable time and willpower to remove his tongue from Sirius’ skin, with Sirius moaning profanely all the while.</p><p>Reluctantly, he pulled away, replacing his tongue with his finger, just for a moment, just for a few deep strokes before he evened his hips with Sirius and began to press in, slowly. As he did, he also slowed the shift of his wrist on Sirius’ cock, holding him delicately in his fingers.</p><p>“Pads,” he spoke in hushed tones, leaning forward to place a tender kiss to Sirius’ spine and using the motion as leverage for his hips. Once their hips were flush, Sirius arched backward, reaching around to pull Remus’ face to the back of his neck and Remus was grateful for any excuse to kiss Sirius as often as he was able. With his lips on Sirius’ neck, he slipped out of Sirius and thrust back in, eliciting a sharp gasp from Sirius’ throat that left Remus aching for more. </p><p>“Don’t stop,” Sirius wined, wrapping his hand around Remus’ fingers from where they were still motionless around his cock. He tightened Remus’ grip. “God, don’t stop, <em>please</em>.”</p><p>Matching the wave of his hips to the shift of his wrist, Remus lost himself to the tightening of Sirius’ muscles around him, to the unhindered calls of his name in Sirius’ voice into the darkness, to the warmth and rigidity of Sirius’ cock in his hand. Without thought to secrets or being found out or difference in social classes, Remus moaned Sirius’ name just as loudly, just as freely, just as desperately. Just as Remus began to feel that familiar crackle of electricity start to sweep through his belly, he felt Sirius go suddenly tense against his chest, head thrown back.</p><p>“Remus, <em>Remus</em>, God, <em>fuck</em>,” Sirius shouted into the open air against the moonlight as Remus felt him spill out between his fingers, cock twitching and muscles throbbing.</p><p>“Oh, <em>God</em>, Sirius,” he exhaled heavily, the witness of Sirius’ orgasm opening the throttle of his own need until he was pulsing with every thrust, aching and urgent. “Fuck, fuck,” he groaned.</p><p>“Je suis folle de toi,” Sirius hummed suddenly, his voice deep at the back of his throat, and Remus felt himself shudder at the inherent purr in Sirius’ voice when he spoke French. That shudder was enough to send him reeling, dizzy and wild, as he released inside Sirius, clutching onto Sirius’ throat as he sunk his teeth into the back of Sirius’ neck, panting and cursing.</p><p>“<em>Jesus</em>,” Remus groaned into Sirius’ skin as he rode out the twitching conclusion of his climax, his fingers still tight around Sirius’ sharp Adam’s apple. With Sirius still arching back as far as he could and with Remus still seething through clenched teeth against Sirius’ skin, Remus carefully slipped himself out of Sirius. It left him with such an emptying feeling that he found his lips pressed to the reddened spot his teeth had just been to make up for it, supplanting one part of Sirius for another as they collapsed together onto the blanket underneath them, wholly spent.</p><p>“My God, Moony,” Sirius said under a hard swallow, struggling to catch his breath. Still, despite the lack of oxygen in his lungs, and the overwhelming surging of his chest to try to replenish it, he still pulled Remus into his arms, kissing the top of his head. “Good thing we didn’t try that in your bedroom, I <em>guarantee</em> I wouldn’t have been able to be any quieter than that.”</p><p>“Hell, we couldn’t have even gotten away with that in your house, even with all the bedrooms on opposite ends of a mansion, <em>that’s</em> how loud you were,” Remus smirked.</p><p>When Sirius looked up at him, his eyes practically sparkled in the moonlight. “No louder than you, Mr. Call-Me-By-The-Name-You-Love,” Sirius teased, pulling Remus closer.</p><p>“Oh, like you didn’t enjoy hearing that.” Remus struck his eyebrow high. Sirius huffed.</p><p>“<em>Obviously</em> I did,” he admitted, rolling his eyes, smiling all the while.</p><p>“Come on, let’s get cleaned up,” Remus hummed, kissing Sirius softly for a moment before pulling him toward the water, though Sirius grumbled at the prospect of moving.</p><p>“Do we have to?” he sighed heavily, though he waded into the lake anyway, winding Remus’ fingers between his own. “Cleaning up means going home and going home means you leaving me and I’d really rather just stay with you all night, if it’s all the same to you.”</p><p>With a subdued laugh, Remus pulled Sirius close, rubbing a soothing hand over the near-broken skin at the base of Sirius’ neck. “Did you bring any towels with you?” he asked.</p><p>“Shit,” Sirius said, wrinkling his whole face. “I guess I <em>don’t</em> think of everything.”  </p><p>“Well, in that case, we’ll have to air dry before we can get dressed,” Remus said with a shrug, turning his mouth down. “We can’t waltz back into our houses soaking wet, can we?”</p><p>A smile crawled over to settle on Sirius’ mouth. “No, I suppose we can’t.”</p><p>“Takes time to air dry, you know. Hours, even,” Remus grinned, picking a leaf from Sirius’ hair before letting his fingers trail down the side of Sirius’ face. Sirius closed his eyes contentedly.</p><p>“What a coincidence.” The peaceful grin on Sirius’ lips turned sinister as he wrapped his arms around Remus’ neck. “That’s <em>exactly</em> the amount of time I wanted to spend sucking your cock.” With an impatient growl, Remus tightened his grip around Sirius’ waist, burying his face into the nape of Sirius’ neck as he dipped him underneath the water.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I would love to hear your comments, or you can send me a shout on tumblr <a href="https://mollymarymarie.tumblr.com/">@mollymarymarie</a> ❤️</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Over and Over Again</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>We can pretend all day, but you know that it’s true</em>
</p><p>
  <em>And then pretend to see from a different view</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I’ve got a whole routine I’ve been playing for you</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Over and over again</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Shit,” Remus heard muttered from somewhere to his left, the foundation underneath him shifting as his cheek met the grass rather jarringly. With a wince, he sat up, squinting at the figure of Sirius, naked against the sunlight. Sunlight. <em>Dawn</em>. Oh, shit.</p><p>“Shit,” he repeated after Sirius, standing immediately and gathering his clothes in a frenzy as Sirius hopped into one leg of his trousers. “Shit, shit, shit.” A fleeting glance was all his bare skin was awarded from Sirius’ attention as Sirius tugged on his shirt and Remus his pants.</p><p>“There is no way we’ll be able to hide this from Lyall,” Sirius stated, as plainly as he could, but Remus could still hear the nervous waver in his voice. His gaze shifted slowly as it met Remus’ line of sight, as if he were worried that Remus was going to blame him for this.</p><p>“As long as your parents don’t find out,” Remus said, glancing over Sirius’ shoulder to the fading pink of the rising sun, knowing there was very little time before his father would be expected in the main house, the chance of Sirius’ parents finding out growing larger. As he pulled a shirt over his head, he huffed out a plan. “I’ll drop you off at the back of the estate. Use the service elevator to get up to your room, just in case.” With a breath, Sirius nodded quickly, pulling Remus to his lips for what felt like could be the last time. Remus tried not to dwell on it.</p><p> </p><p>It was a much quicker trip than it had been the night before, and much less free. If they were seen … Remus ignored that nagging thought as he maneuvered the bicycle between the rose bushes and the flustered peacocks. As he dropped Sirius at the back entrance of the estate, Sirius looked at him with wide, worried eyes over a heavily disguised smile before disappearing into the mansion. They didn’t dare press their luck trying to steal another kiss.</p><p>In the increasing daylight, Remus could see that the front door of his house was still closed. There was still a chance that his father hadn’t come downstairs yet, it was still just daybreak. Without waiting for the bicycle to stop moving, Remus jumped from it, letting it continue without him into the brush at the side of the house. As he moved to the front door, he gave the back tire another kick, hiding it entirely in the shrubs and leaves.</p><p>Once in the kitchen, with the door shut behind him, he let himself lean against the counter just as he heard the footsteps of his father descending the stairs. To complete the picture, Remus draped one hand over his stomach, doubling over the kitchen counter.</p><p>“Remus!” he heard as Lyall came into view. “What’s wrong? What happened?”</p><p>“I’ve been up all night,” Remus groaned as Lyall placed the back of his hand over Remus’ forehead. “I think I must’ve had something at the party that didn’t agree with me.”</p><p>“You’re burning up, son,” Lyall said with concern in his voice and Remus winced, knowing that his temperature had more to do with the fact that he pedaled home in a panic.</p><p>“I’d better stay home today,” Remus sighed heavily, the stabbing of guilt actually turning his stomach to make his lie just a bit more believable. Lyall nodded in understanding.</p><p>“I’ll let Master Sirius know,” he said as he opened the front door. “Get back to bed and get some rest,” Lyall said as Remus tried not to let the truth burst from his remorseful lips.</p><p>“Thanks, Da,” he said under his breath, his gaze falling to the floor. As Lyall shut the door behind him, Remus went to move up the stairs, finding his mother standing there.</p><p>“Remus,” she said, too softly and too carefully. <em>Shit</em>. “You can’t hide it from him forever.”</p><p>A nervous chuckle moved from Remus’ lips. “Hide what?” he asked, knowing, even as he spoke. They hadn’t been careful enough. Somehow, his mother had found out the truth.</p><p>“I’m not telling you to end it with Sirius,” she said, and Remus visibly winced at the sound of his name. “But this secret is going to become too much for you to bear. It weighs on you.”</p><p>“I don’t like lying to him,” Remus finally said in an outward breath. “But you didn’t hear us that night. We promised him that we would stop.” He swallowed. “But I couldn’t.”</p><p>“Because you love him,” Hope said with a nonchalant shrug. “That’s <em>okay</em>, Remus.”</p><p>“It’s really not,” Remus blurted, bending forward and burying his face into his waiting hands. “It’s <em>really</em> not. Because we can’t be together. Not as long as I work for his family.” Before he could straighten out, he felt his mother’s hand on his back, her thumb moving back and forth.</p><p>“Then we’ll have to find another solution,” she stated plainly, as if it were easy. “He loves you, too, doesn’t he?” she continued, moving her hands to Remus’ face to draw his gaze. As he righted himself, he watched her with an expression that he knew she could read easily.</p><p>“I think he does,” Remus admitted softly, hearing Sirius’ voice in his head, hearing Sirius state that he belonged to Remus, hearing Sirius call himself his boyfriend for the first time. “But there isn’t another solution. Da will never leave this house. It’s our legacy.”</p><p>With a roll of her eyes, Hope shook her head. “Your father feels honor-bound to stay with the Black family because, just as you said, it’s his family’s legacy. But he is <em>miserable</em> here.”</p><p>“Really?” Remus asked, realizing he should’ve dialed down the optimism in his tone.</p><p>“Really,” Hope repeated with a twist of her lips, and Remus let his mind wander, imagining what it would be like if he didn’t work for Sirius, if he wasn’t in the mansion every day, if he could see Sirius socially. In that moment, all promise fell sharply into his gut, dissipating.</p><p>“If I’m not in that house,” he began on a wavering breath. “Sirius is all alone.”</p><p>“Oh,” Hope said, sighing heavily. “Is it that bad for him?”</p><p>With an angry pull of breath, Remus launched into a tirade. “<em>Worse</em>. He doesn’t leave unless instructed to do so. People who visit him at the mansion only want things from him. His parents treat him like a lesser son even though he’s done everything they have ever wanted him to do. They work him to death, trying to groom him into becoming just like Orion.” As his violent rant screeched to a stop at the surprise on his mother’s face, she opened her mouth slightly.</p><p>“Go,” she said pushing him to the door. He just blinked at her. “Go! Everyone thinks you’re here, right? Spend the day with your boyfriend. Make him happy.”</p><p>After a moment of stunned silence, Remus leaped forward and took his mother by the face, pressing his lips to her forehead. “I love you so much, Mum.” She laughed.</p><p>“Let’s hope he’s better at faking an illness than you are,” she snickered, and Remus pinched her lightly on the shoulder before rushing toward the door. On his way out, he leaned back in, holding onto the doorframe with his fingertips, an abundant smile on his face.</p><p>“You know,” he grinned. “I still call him Padfoot for you. He kinda likes it,” he said, watering down exactly how <em>much</em> Sirius liked it. The smile on his mother’s face soared, at first, but her eyes narrowed in Remus’ direction as she pulled that smile into her teeth.</p><p>“Oh, no,” she groaned. “I have a feeling I won’t be able to call him that anymore,” she sighed playfully, a knowing smirk moving over her face as Remus’ cheeks flushed red. With a quick look of half-apology and half-pride, he ducked from the house, starting toward the mansion, while his mother’s familiar, raucous laughter followed him all the way across the yard.</p><p> </p><p>As Remus expected, Sirius was no longer in his bedroom when he arrived, luckily without having been seen by any of the other staff, including his father. For a moment, he wondered how he would tell Sirius he was here. After all, he knew that Sirius had one of those meetings with his father that morning, so he would likely be in the conference room. Remus hadn’t put on his uniform, so he couldn’t chance interrupting with some excuse about an imaginary phone call.</p><p>A <em>phone call</em>. There was a phone on the desk in the corner of Sirius’ bedroom, where he often finished some late-night work, usually with Remus smoking out of the window next to him or lying across Sirius’ bed with the tie hanging loose at his throat. This was his best shot.</p><p>With his heart in his throat, Remus dialed the extension for Sirius’ office. And he held his breath. After all, someone other than Sirius could pick up, as unlikely as that was, since Sirius usually left his office locked when he wasn’t in it. One ring. Two rings. Three rings.</p><p>Just as Remus was ready to give up, thinking that Sirius was in the conference room, the line connected. At first, it was silent, just the sound of an inhale on the other end. Remus remained mute, waiting for some sign that it was Sirius and not, God forbid, his mother.</p><p>“Hello?” the voice answered, curious and careful. Remus let out his held breath.</p><p>“Hi, Padfoot,” he spoke low in that breath, covering the receiver with one hand. On the other end, Sirius let out a similar breath, and Remus could hear him struggle to conceal it.</p><p>“Hi, I … wasn’t expecting your call,” he said, fumbling at first, and Remus was sure that Orion was in the room with him. Before Remus could even explain, Sirius was speaking again, faking a conversation. “No, now is fine. Let me just find that contract.” For a moment, the sound was muffled, as if Sirius was holding the receiver to his chest, though Remus could hear the rumble of his voice, saying, “It’s that client I told you about a few days ago. I may have to meet with them again today. Can you handle the meeting without me?” and Remus knew that Sirius was intentionally antagonizing his father with that statement. In fact, he could hear Orion’s raised tone grumbling about how he didn’t <em>need</em> Sirius, of <em>course</em> he could handle the meeting.</p><p>When Remus heard the rustling of the receiver returning to Sirius’ ear, he spoke in a near-whisper, just in case Orion was still lingering. “I hope I haven’t caught you at a bad time.”</p><p>“Are you calling from my bedroom?” Sirius asked immediately, his voice so deep and so full of appetite that it sent an immediate shiver down Remus’ spine.</p><p>“In fact, I am,” Remus hummed, holding the receiver to his throat to amplify the sound of it, as he gripped the underside of the phone housing to carry it over to Sirius’ bed.</p><p>“I should’ve known your mysterious illness was your cover for last night,” Sirius replied with a soft laugh, his voice strangely tight. “I’m surprised that Lyall believed that excuse.”</p><p>“So am I,” Remus said with a sigh of relief as he kicked off his shoes. “I’m not sure how we keep getting lucky like this, but I hope it continues.” The other end of the line was quiet.</p><p>“Remus, I …” Sirius began to say as Remus cradled the phone between his shoulder and his ear so he could untie the string of his joggers, but it dissolved into a low hum. “You really shouldn’t breathe into the phone like you are.” The tone of Sirius’ voice turned dark and desperate as he continued. “It might lead me to do something very stupid.”</p><p>“Like sneak down to your bedroom?” Remus teased. “Because you should know that I’m standing here, half-undressed, and planning to have it all off by the time you get here.”</p><p>“<em>Fuuuck</em> me,” Sirius growled, lowering his voice even further. “Don’t you dare start without me, Moony. I’m stuck in this office until they start that goddamn meeting.” Quickly, Remus shed the rest of his clothes and settled into the center of Sirius’ bed, leaning back against the opulent, cushioned headboard and smiling arrogantly, one hand behind his head.</p><p>“No, I’m <em>definitely</em> going to start without you,” Remus taunted, purposefully pressing more air into his throat, dispersed throughout each word, and Sirius whimpered. “After all, I thought you might like to walk in on me the way I walked in on <em>you</em> all those years ago.”</p><p>A quick huff moved through the line. “<em>Oh</em>. Fuck.” That rough impatience returned to Sirius’ voice as he spoke again. “Give me a preview. What are you doing right now?”  </p><p>“Sitting naked in your bed,” Remus replied without pause, and the helpless, moaning whine from Sirius’ throat sent an arch into Remus’ back as he ached to hear it firsthand.</p><p>“God, I’m hard just picturing it,” Sirius exhaled heavily, and it sent a reciprocal weight into Remus’ hips. “What I wouldn’t do to get rid of the arseholes congregating outside my door.”</p><p>“You know, it isn’t really starting without you if you talk me through it,” Remus offered in a hushed voice, rewarded with a deep hum from Sirius’ throat. “Tell me what you want.”</p><p>Without hesitation, Sirius dove in, the cadence of his voice turning a bit manic. “That bottle of lube from last night is in the top drawer of my bedside table.” A devious smile crossed over Remus’ lips, his eyebrow struck high, as he rummaged through the drawer to find it. He didn’t wait for Sirius’ instruction to transfer a generous amount into the palm of his hand. “I hope you left the lights on, because I’m going to need you to describe this in <em>perfect</em> detail.”</p><p>As Remus laughed, he clarified. “The lights are off. Just the curtains split. But I don’t need to see much to tell you that I’m sprawled out across your sheets with my legs spread and my fingers wet.” After an initial sharp inhale, Sirius panted out into the receiver, the line crackling.</p><p>“I’m going to murder my father if you finish without me,” he said, teeth audibly clenched.</p><p>“I haven’t even started,” he smiled. “I <em>do</em> wish you could start with me, from there.”</p><p>“Remus,” Sirius said flatly, though the excess breath in his throat wavered his voice just a bit. “If you think I don’t already have my cock out, you don’t know me very well at all, darling.”</p><p>A bright laugh moved from Remus’ lips and he had to bite his lip to stifle it. “And here I am, waiting for you to tell me to touch myself …” he began, but Sirius interrupted quickly.</p><p>“Please, <em>God</em>, touch yourself, Moony,” he said, and it sounded like a commandment and a supplication all at once. No matter which it was, Remus was more than happy to fulfill it.</p><p>“Oh, fuck, Sirius,” he moaned into the line as he slid his slick fingers up the length of his erection, slowly, in an effort to keep it from building too much, too quickly.</p><p>“How does it feel, love?” Sirius prompted in an attempt to get Remus to speak.</p><p>“It would feel so much fucking better if it were <em>you</em>,” Remus complained, but the volume of air moving in and out of his chest told a slightly different story, and Sirius noticed.</p><p>“You say that, but you’re breathing pretty heavily.” There was a smirk in his voice.</p><p>“Only because I’m picturing you at your desk with your cock out,” Remus quipped back, his breathing hitching as his fist moved between his legs. He struggled to slow his movement.</p><p>“Fuck, I should find ways to make you say the word cock more often,” Sirius said under a breathy laugh that quickly dissolved into a soft gasp. “Oh, shit, I think they left the hallway.”</p><p>“Then get down here and <em>fuck</em> <em>me</em> for God’s sake,” Remus begged, taking to holding himself at the base of his cock in a futile attempt to stave off the want he was trying to save.</p><p>“Before I go,” Sirius said, his breathing shifting slightly with apparent movement, and Remus imagined him fastening his trousers. “A little something for the trip,” he stated cryptically before moving the receiver very close and breathing out, “Ever since I moved into this office, I’ve entertained the fantasy of you bending me over this desk. I’ve gotten off to it in this chair.”</p><p>“Jesus, Sirius,” Remus hissed, his grip tightening. “Maybe when we finish here, we could act out this little fantasy of yours.” A raspy laugh slipped from Sirius’ lips, sounding like static.</p><p>“If we can,” he said in a hush. “If I stay out of my office, my father will think I’m not here at all, and nobody will know that I’m in my bedroom with a very large cock between my teeth.”</p><p>Before Remus could respond, the call disconnected. “Fuck,” he exhaled, settling the receiver onto the housing a little less than delicately before moving it to the bedside table. In less time than he thought it should’ve taken, the door to Sirius’ bedroom opened slowly. As a last-second precaution, Remus placed a throw pillow between his legs.</p><p>But his fears were thankfully unfounded, as Sirius peered around the edge of the door, his hungry eyes scattering across every inch of Remus’ bare skin before him, glinting mischievously from behind his heavy frames. Just to make Sirius ache a little more desperately, Remus left the pillow, one hand behind his head, the other wrapped around his hidden cock.</p><p>“You should’ve locked the door,” Sirius said, his voice soft but his gaze sharp. As he let the door shut behind him, he did just that, turning the lock with a quiet click.</p><p>“It wouldn’t have had the same effect if I had to let you in,” Remus smirked, watching Sirius walk over to the edge of the bed, loosening his tie with violence in his movement.</p><p>“May I?” he asked, letting one hand hover over the pillow between Remus’ legs.</p><p>“Come on, baby, I wish you would,” Remus teased with that same lyric, and Sirius’ gaze flicked up to meet his only a single time before it settled again at his fingers, gripping tightly onto the ruffled edge of the satin pillow. The moment it was out of the way, Sirius’ pupils dilated.</p><p>“God,” he breathed out slowly, chopped and uneven. “I never want to get used to this sight,” he said, dragging his fingertips up Remus’ naked thigh. “I want to feel like this <em>every</em> time.”</p><p>“Padfoot,” Remus whispered, surprised at the blushing of his cheeks. But there was something troublesome in Sirius’ eyes as he removed his glasses. Something dark and heavy and not in the way that Remus expected – not with lust, but with burden and worry. The moment his eyes moved back to Remus, it was accompanied by a breath of what sounded like relief, as if he had regained his place, but the want in his gaze was blanked out by the showy veneer he put on for people to see. <em>Other</em> people, but not Remus. It left a cold sting behind in Remus’ chest.</p><p>“There are so many things I want to do to you right now, I’m not sure where to start,” Sirius said with a laugh that was engineered to sound lighter than where it originated.</p><p>“You’re really not going to tell me what that look was about?” Remus prodded.</p><p>With a scoff, Sirius shook his head. “There was no look.” He laughed again for good measure, but his jaw clenched tightly, and Remus could see the halo of that mask he hid behind.</p><p>“Tell me what’s bothering you,” Remus said. An irritated snarl appeared on Sirius’ worry-bitten lips, as Sirius watched him carefully, the natural suspicion from his upbringing moving into the narrowing of his eyes and in the wrinkles between his thick eyebrows.</p><p>When Sirius spoke again, Remus knew he was avoiding the subject. Despite his curiosity and concern, Remus decided to let him keep dodging, knowing he couldn’t make Sirius do <em>anything</em> he didn’t want to do. The last ten years as Sirius’ caretaker had taught him that. Still, he knew a few ways to get Sirius to agree to talk. And they were off to a very good start.</p><p>“On the way over, I was thinking,” Sirius continued as he started on the buttons of his shirt, and Remus leaned over to help, but Sirius moved out of his reach. “It’s not quite as good as being able to see you or being able to touch you or being able to kiss you,” his thought rambled a touch as his eyes moved devotedly over Remus’ uncovered skin, “but listening to you on the phone just now, I … is there a phone in your bedroom at home?” he asked, eyebrow twitching.</p><p>“There is,” Remus nodded, shifting his wrist just to watch the way Sirius’ mouth fell open, while the jacket, shirt, and tie slipped unnoticed from his defined shoulders as he stood still.</p><p>“I know it’s not the same, but …” he drifted, letting his hand slip underneath Remus’ thigh. “But I could easily come just listening to the sound of your voice.” He tensed his fingers.</p><p>“I’ll remember that for tomorrow night,” Remus said as he lifted his knee to allow Sirius’ fingers to move into whatever space they wanted to take. But Sirius pulled his hand back.</p><p>“Right now,” he said, biting his lip as he let his eyes wander. When Remus’ hand slowed and his fingers slacked from their hold around his cock, Sirius reached over and reinstated Remus’ grip before pulling away again, starting on removing his trousers. “I just want to watch.”</p><p>A sharp pull of breath moved into Remus’ lungs. “I don’t think I can handle not being touched by you right now,” he groaned, paying devout attention to the work of Sirius’ hands as they steadily removed more and more of the layers that kept Sirius from his view.</p><p>“Does it help if I let you watch, too?” Sirius said, his already deepened voice dropping down into a sinister tease as he shifted his hips out of his trousers and boxers all at once, leaving Remus to choke down a heavy swallow at the sight of Sirius fully naked before him. And Sirius has been right before – Remus never wanted to get used to this sight, because the immediate arousal that swept through his gut was addicting enough to lead to a dangerous obsession.</p><p>“Yes,” Remus managed to croak out, the sight of Sirius enough to make him forget Sirius’ secret, at least temporarily. Sirius moved onto the bed, settling on the opposite end with his legs spread wide before him, their feet pressed together at the sole for a moment before Sirius let the top of his foot slide along Remus’ ankle. While it wasn’t the <em>exact</em> stimulation Remus was craving, it was gentle and tender and assuring, and it sparked a cascade through the vessels in his muscles and the neurons in his skin that culminated in an expectant twitching of his cock.</p><p>Because of the ardent attention Sirius was paying to every quiver of Remus’ skin, his silver eyes flicked up to meet Remus’ gaze in the same moment, just to let Remus watch the inciteful rise of his dark brow. With that expression in place, Sirius leaned forward to retrieve the bottle that Remus had tossed onto the end of the bed, his legs still split, and Remus found his mind wandering to all the positions Sirius could contort into with that level of flexibility.</p><p>As Sirius let the contents of that bottle spill into his waiting hand, his movement was almost mechanical, clinical, and Remus thought back to the time that he had walked in on Sirius with his hand between his legs when they were teenagers, when Sirius had admitted he had been thinking about Remus. It left Remus with a frustrating realization that Sirius had gotten off alone so many times when Remus would have been more than willing to help do it for him.</p><p>Still, as Remus watched Sirius dip his hand low, almost absently, toward the center of his hips, sliding his slick fingers softly and sweetly down his aroused skin, Remus couldn’t help but be overcome by the reality of seeing it firsthand. “You’re so incredible. Have I told you that?”</p><p>It was unusual to see Sirius Black blush, but when it happened, it was like watching an overturned glass of wine spill out onto a linen tablecloth, his surging blood so violently red and his delicate skin so ghostly pale. And Remus could do nothing in response but increase the grip of his fist, nothing but watch the ever-evolving features of Sirius’ face shift as the underlying rigour that he constantly maintained slipped away to reveal soft vulnerability and delicious abandon.</p><p>“Do you know how many times I’ve done <em>just this</em> wishing you were across from me like you are, looking at me like you are?” Sirius asked, an unguarded grunt moving through his lips as his hips began to thrust faintly in time to his wrist. “My fantasies didn’t do your cock justice.”</p><p>A short laugh bubbled up from Remus’ throat, but it was overtaken by a heavy breath as Remus’ movement fell in time with Sirius’ and he could better pretend that it was Sirius’ hand on his cock instead of his own. “If you had told me, I would’ve done this <em>much</em> sooner.”</p><p>“<em>Work</em> with me,” Sirius said, his tone bordering on begging. “Are you implying that you fancied me all this time and didn’t fantasize about me a single time? You’ve yet to name <em>one</em>.”</p><p>Remus let out a violent breath that shaped into a moan the further it traveled up his throat. “<em>My</em> fantasy was fulfilled last night,” he gasped, letting his head fall backward for only a moment before correcting so that he didn’t miss a second of watching Sirius. “And my fantasies couldn’t have <em>ever</em> lived up to the way you taste.” At that confession, Sirius’ mouth went slack.</p><p>“Fuck,” Sirius growled, biting hard onto his bottom lip and chewing in rhythm to the slip of Remus’ hand along his cock, his eyes focused on Remus’ increasingly erratic motion. “<em>Fuck</em>.”</p><p>“Describe your favourite fantasy to me, Padfoot,” Remus requested, his words raspy as the excessive amounts of oxygen moving through his throat had eroded his vocal cords.</p><p>“No, let me tell you what I <em>never</em> fantasized about, because I never would’ve expected it to ruin me the way it does, and it’s that adorable nickname your mother gave me,” Sirius rambled, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “I couldn’t have imagined the look always in your eyes when you say it. I couldn’t have imagined you saying it with your lips to my cock.”</p><p>“God, Sirius.” The air in Remus’ lungs swelled and he pursed his lips to blow it out slowly, not oblivious to the fact that Sirius’ fervent strokes increased as he did. “Keep talking.”</p><p>“I was lucky enough that I ever got to know you at all, even more so to have you wake me every morning and drink with me into the night,” he said, and there was trouble in his voice despite the obscenity of lust present on his expression. “It was beyond what I ever thought I would get to experience to even have you <em>kiss</em> me, much less <em>fuck</em> me,” he said, his voice dropping low as he watched Remus unravel at the way he spoke, at the way he stroked himself.</p><p>“Padfoot, why –” Remus began to say, because this sounded like the beginning of a goodbye, but Sirius continued, not giving Remus room to derail their momentum.</p><p>“Do you have <em>any</em> idea what last night meant to me, Moony?” he asked, stopping to suck in a deep breath as he craned his head toward the ceiling, leaving Remus with a beautiful view of the sharp angles of his throat and the glass-edge of his jaw. “How badly I wanted you?”</p><p>“Tell me,” Remus pleaded, feeling the familiar pull of the approaching orgasm.</p><p>“Don’t get me wrong,” Sirius said with a laugh that finally sounded light and honest, the one Remus was used to hearing. “I could come <em>right fucking now</em> just remembering the way your magnificent tongue pressed into me or the way you kissed my spine right before you fucked me senseless with your wet, throbbing cock,” Sirius panted, being deliberately, overtly pornographic with his choice of words, surely knowing the riot it would leave behind in Remus’ hips.</p><p>“Fuck, Sirius, fuck,” Remus howled, rotating his hips involuntarily, fingers quivering.</p><p>“And I’ll always come back to that when I’m <em>right here</em>, with my hand on my cock, wishing it was yours, wishing you could fuck me <em>hard</em>, the way you did last night,” he growled.</p><p>“Then <em>let me</em>, Sirius. I could fuck you right now,” Remus begged, so close, so needy.</p><p>A small smile crossed over Sirius’ lips. “But the things that are going to keep me up at night, the things I won’t be able to live without … they seem small in comparison, but those are the things that led me here, the things that led me to fa-” he restarted, “that led me to <em>you</em>.”</p><p>“Bring your cock to my mouth and tell me what they are while I blow you,” Remus ordered. The darkness swarmed in Sirius’ silver gaze and he obeyed, much to Remus’ surprise, rising to his knees. In desperate anticipation, Remus leaned forward, mouth wide. As his lips wrapped around the head of Sirius’ cock, his tongue sliding along the frenulum, Sirius moaned.</p><p>“Oh, <em>fuck</em>, Moony,” he sighed. “It’s exactly this – this is what made me so weak for you.”</p><p>With his lips mumbling against the tip of Sirius’ cock, he argued. “I’m flattered, but I didn’t blow you until the morning after this all started.” The laugh in reply was affectionate.</p><p>“It’s not your mouth,” Sirius corrected, but the further Remus pulled him in, the breathier his cries became. “Though, fuck it, your mouth is <em>divine</em>.” Remus hummed his approval. “It’s the way you <em>care</em> for me, Moony. It’s the way you offer to blow me to take my mind off of the thing bothering me, when you don’t even know what it is. It’s the tone of your voice when you tell me good morning and the way your eyes flutter closed before we even kiss. It’s <em>everything</em> you do.”</p><p>“Sirius, what –” he began to say as he pulled Sirius from his mouth to speak, the concern cresting in his heart, but Sirius continued speaking, dropping back to balance on his heels. </p><p>“Remus, they’re going to send me to France,” he blurted out without warning, words shuddering. A dismayed breath tried to move from Remus’ lungs, but it caught in his throat.</p><p>“No,” Remus exhaled, suddenly void of any feeling except loss and panic. He went still.</p><p>“That’s right. Say <em>no</em>,” Sirius agreed with an unexpected vehemence in his voice that caught Remus so off-guard that he instantly looked up just in time for Sirius’ lips to crash into his own, and it was angry and bitter and rebellious without having lost any of the fondness that was usually present in Sirius’ kiss. Their hands moved together, slipping wet around each other’s hips as they clumsily and desperately pulled one another closer. “Say you’ll fight to keep me, or at least that you’ll call me every night to listen to me masturbate to the thought of you.” Sirius heaved deeply. “Or, <em>fuck</em>, just say you’ll come with me. Because I can’t lose you, Remus.”</p><p>With a biting moan, Remus agreed. “Not when you just became mine,” he puffed into Sirius’ open mouth as Sirius hovered over him. With hands trembling with the nearness of climax and the terror of losing the one he loved, Remus steadied Sirius’ cock against his own. “Fuck me right now, Sirius,” he begged, fingers stroking. “Fuck me and tell me it won’t be the last time.”</p><p>“It won’t, Moony, it won’t be,” he stammered, pulling out until he had nearly slipped out of Remus’ fingers before thrusting in again. “You promised to fuck me for the rest of your life.”</p><p>“Damn right,” Remus groaned, leaning up to claim Sirius’ lips in another fitful kiss, filled with everything that remained unsaid, the sum of years of pining reduced to only a few days.</p><p>“Don’t let them take me from you, <em>please</em>,” Sirius said, his once strong voice reduced to a nervous tremble, his words echoing into the hollow depths of Remus’ throat.</p><p>“Listen to me, we’ll run away together if we have to,” Remus said, pressing Sirius’ forehead to his own and stealing affectionate kisses with every inward thrust of Sirius’ hips. And maybe this wasn’t how he imagined making this confession but <em>fuck it all</em>. Fuck everything and fuck Orion and Walburga and fuck the Black Firm and fuck the universe. “Because I am <em>in</em> <em>love</em> with you, Sirius. And I refuse to live without you. Let them fire me. J’en ai rien à foutre.”</p><p>“Remus, <em>yes</em>,” Sirius called out, and he said the words that Remus had been waiting to hear since he was seventeen. “Mon dieu, je t'aime <em>tellement</em>,” he whispered against Remus’ lips.</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus breathed into Sirius’ kiss, his knees trembling and his chest heaving and his head swimming because Sirius Black was in <em>love</em> with him just the same. The very next roll of Sirius’ hips left Remus repeating his name over and over as he climaxed, thighs quaking and abdomen tensing and breath failing. “Fuck, Sirius. <em>Fuck</em> me,” he called out.</p><p>After Sirius rode out Remus’ orgasm, thrusting until Remus could utter nothing but a  whimper, Sirius rose to his knees, level with Remus’ face, and Remus couldn’t help but take Sirius by the hips and pull him deeply into his throat, humming violently and angrily. As he leaned back against the headboard, Sirius gripped tightly to the top of it, using it as leverage to shove his cock into Remus’ mouth just as urgently as Remus needed him to, just as brutally as Remus expected him to, with the bitterness bound to be in his heart. If this was all Remus could do, he <em>would</em>.</p><p>Though Remus’ eyes were watering with the thickness of Sirius’ cock breaching the precipice of his throat with every thrust, he took him in as deeply as he was able, gripping onto him as tightly as he could until his fingernails were digging into the soft skin of Sirius’ thighs.</p><p>“Oh God, oh my <em>God</em>, Remus,” he shouted toward the ceiling, his throat tight with how far back his head had been thrown. “You’re so fucking wonderful and I am so fucking in love with you, Jesus <em>fucking</em> Christ,” Sirius confessed again, loud and breathy and absolute, as Remus felt Sirius’ cock tighten and throb between his teeth, felt the warmth of Sirius’ orgasm slip down into his throat, tasted the salinity of Sirius’ spent need coat his tongue before he swallowed it fully.</p><p>Gently, Sirius slipped out of Remus’ lips and, with a satisfied sigh that still definitely spoke of something other than pleasure, collapsed onto Remus’ bare chest, glistening with sweat.</p><p>“I could get used to the idea of moving to France,” Remus mentioned casually, his fingers mindlessly moving into Sirius’ hair. A soft laugh was awarded him, but Sirius was still struggling to catch his breath, so it wasn’t quite as full as the ones Remus had grown to love.</p><p>“We’re just skipping over the confessions of love, then?” Sirius said, his voice raspy and dry, and he looked down at Remus with that raised eyebrow that got Remus into trouble.</p><p>“What’s left to say?” Remus shrugged. “You’ve fallen in love with me over the last few days and I’ve been in love with you all my life. Seems rather cut and dried to me.” And Remus didn’t even get to finish speaking before Sirius was vehemently arguing the point.</p><p>“The last few <em>days</em>?” Sirius scoffed, laughing loudly. “Try again, darling. If anything, I was in love with you first. You didn’t figure it out until <em>after</em> you caught me masturbating, which –”</p><p>“Oh, <em>please</em>,” Remus interrupted, a playful growl in his throat.</p><p>Sirius continued over him. “<em>Which</em> was more than five years ago, and you never even –”</p><p>“I never made a pass at you because I didn’t want to be wrong and get <em>fired</em>,” Remus enunciated clearly, watching the white fire dance in the silver of Sirius’ eyes, the same one that showed up when he was convincing someone to invest or convincing them to sell. “If anything, this was on <em>you</em> to make the first move, because I would’ve had very little room to say no.”</p><p>“Do you <em>hear</em> yourself?” Sirius replied in a shrill voice, and it was so obvious he had missed this type of back and forth banter. “What was I gonna do, <em>force</em> you to love me?”</p><p>With a smile, Remus leaned up and pressed a delicate kiss to Sirius’ lips. “Look at that, I guess you didn’t have to,” he said as Sirius melted into his arms. “I fell in love all on my own.” At first, Sirius smiled in pure bliss, but it faded as realization of the circumstance crept back in.</p><p>“Would you really go to France with me? What about Hope and Lyall?” Sirius asked, the white fire in his gaze smoldering back into grey, obviously imagining every negative aspect of this whole arrangement. However, there was one important facet that he was blatantly overlooking.</p><p>“Not a lot of policing our parents can do if we’re in a separate country,” he smirked.</p><p>A strange flurry of expressions and emotions moved over Sirius’ face as he began to realize the potential of what this could mean. It settled into a smile. “I suppose you’re right.”</p><p>“Now, if they’ll <em>let</em> me go? That’s another war. One we’ll fight when we come to it,” Remus assured him with a soft squeeze to his shoulder. Sirius snuggled into his arms further.</p><p>“What in God’s name would I do without you, Moony?” he mumbled from his place against Remus’ chest, feathering light kisses to Remus’ skin that quickly grew heavier.</p><p>“True. I am <em>one hell</em> of a butler,” Remus dead-panned, before his face split into a grin.</p><p>“You’re goddamn right,” Sirius growled, rutting his semi-aroused cock into Remus’ hip. “I truly don’t know another butler who goes to the … <em>lengths</em> that you do in order to please me.”</p><p>“Well, blow jobs weren’t <em>really</em> part of my job description, I just threw those in as a bonus because I like your cock so fucking much.” With a loud growl that had a whimpering laugh buried somewhere within it, Sirius pushed his lips to Remus’ once more, kissing him thoroughly.</p><p>“I’d better get back before my father comes looking for me,” Sirius said with a sigh that was only <em>partly</em> defeated. After all, they had confessed their love, they were moving to France. Soon, there would be no more sneaking around, no more hiding, no more defeat. With one more kiss, a little quicker and a little sweeter than the last, Sirius pulled himself from the bed.</p><p>“Call me when you’re ready for me to fuck you over your desk,” Remus said, lounging across Sirius’ turquoise sheets, still naked and looking extremely well-fucked, with his hands tucked behind his head, an arrogant smile still playing on his lips as he watched Sirius dress.</p><p>Under a sharply raised brow, Sirius looked back with mayhem in his silver gaze before running his tongue along his teeth, making sure Remus watched as he slowly pulled the boxers over his half-hard cock. Just for old times’ sake, he adjusted quite explicitly, and for the same sake, Remus sucked in a wanting breath as he watched Sirius touch himself.</p><p>“God, I love you,” Sirius grinned widely as he leaned in for another kiss.</p><p>“I loved you first,” Remus said with a laugh that quivered against Sirius’ lips.</p><p>“Shut the fuck up.” With a quick, tender nip at Remus’ bottom lip, Sirius pulled away, threw his shirt and jacket on, buttoning on his way to the door. As he haphazardly tucked his shirt in, he opened the door, pausing only to say, “Lock the door this time, you reckless devil,” on his way out, leaving Remus with a wink before the door could shut behind him.</p><p>“You forgot your glasses,” Remus called after him, taking them from the bedside table and letting them dangle from his fingertips. In a flurry, Sirius jolted back into the room and swiped his forgotten glasses from Remus’ fingers, taking a moment to kiss Remus deeply.</p><p>“Thank you, love,” Sirius hummed, pecking small kisses onto Remus’ lips as a chaser.</p><p>“You’re welcome, you oblivious walnut,” Remus grinned, and Sirius shot him the finger, albeit quite affectionately, on his way out the door. This time, he locked the door himself before he closed it, flashing Remus an animated smile, leaving Remus to smile daftly after him.</p><p> </p><p>In less time than it took Remus to get fully dressed, the phone in Sirius’ bedroom was ringing and Remus barely even had to glance at the extension before answering.</p><p>“Is the meeting over?” he asked, biting the hem of his t-shirt to keep it out of the way as he fidgeted with the string of his joggers, which he now regretted untying in the first place.</p><p>A soft sigh fell through the line. “Please tell me what is in your mouth,” Sirius said, with the hint of a whine in the back of his throat. “Because, if left to my imagination, I could come up with a thousand things in that room that I’d love to see between your lips.”</p><p>“It’s just my shirt,” Remus said, letting the fabric fall from his teeth. “You took the thing I want between my lips with you when you left,” he quickly quipped in response, and that whine in Sirius’ throat grew into something guttural and deep, somewhere just shy of a moan.</p><p>“God, you’re so greedy,” Sirius huffed, interrupted by a laugh he tried to conceal behind a playfully exasperated groan. “How can I lavish you with orgasms if you insist on sucking <em>my</em> cock every time the hour changes? Honestly, Remus. It has to be your turn <em>some</em> of the time.”</p><p>After a purposeful pause, Remus replied, “I don’t see why we can’t do both at once.”</p><p>“Fuck,” Sirius growled, Remus smirked. “When did you get better at this than me?”</p><p>“I’ve <em>always</em> been better at this than you,” Remus said with a shrug that he knew Sirius couldn’t see him making. “I’ve just gotten better at saying it <em>out loud</em> more recently than you.”</p><p>“Then sneak over here and say it out loud to my face,” Sirius said.</p><p>“I’d rather say it out loud between your legs,” Remus hummed, an easy smile in his voice.</p><p>“Good <em>God</em>,” Sirius groaned. “Either way, move your arse. My father walked his associates out just a moment ago, so I’d say you only have a few minutes left now.”</p><p>“Shit,” Remus hissed as he slammed the phone back onto the receiver and sprinted to Sirius’ bedroom door. On his frantic way to Sirius’ office, there were several close calls with some of the other staff, and one very narrow avoidance of his father coming down the hall from the conference room. By the time Remus slipped silently into Sirius’ office, he was panting heavily, watching for a sign that his father <em>had</em> seen him, peering through a crack in Sirius’ door.</p><p>Before he could move, Sirius’ lips were on his ear, his fingers winding their way between Remus’ own. “I know it’s silly to say I missed you when we’ve only been apart less than ten minutes, but I missed you all the same,” he whispered, pulling Remus away from the door.</p><p>Powerless to the touch of Sirius’ skin and the warmth of his breath, Remus followed, sliding his arms around Sirius’ waist to pull Sirius close. With a sweep of his arm, Remus pushed the papers on Sirius’ desk off onto the floor before lifting Sirius from his feet and settling him onto the newly cleared space. A curious, eager swirl of the silver in Sirius’ eyes drew Remus’ unashamed gaze. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said with a roguish grin.</p><p>“Well, go on,” Sirius prompted, wrapping his legs around Remus’ hips. “Tell me what else you’ve wanted to do.” A hungry kiss broke up his thought. “With me. On this desk.”</p><p>“That would be better suited to a demonstration,” Remus replied breathlessly between the deep plunges of Sirius’ tongue into his mouth. With one hand against the small of Sirius’ back, he shifted him further onto the ebony desktop, balancing with his knee propped up on the rounded edge of the wood. His other hand angled Sirius’ head, craning his neck to kiss him deeper, to hold him closer, to feel him more fully. A stunted breath slipped through Sirius’ lips.</p><p>“<em>Sirius Orion Black</em>!” a shrill voice jarred them both from their bliss. <em>No, no, no, no</em>, <em>not</em> <strong><em>her</em></strong>. <em>Please, God, not her</em>. Dread rushed into Remus’ chest as they scrambled to stand at attention in front of Lady Walburga, her spindly fingers on the doorknob that they had so carelessly left unlocked. “What in the <em>seven hells</em> is going on in here?” she shrieked, eyes wide.</p><p>“Mother, I can expla–” Sirius’ trembling voice was immediately interrupted.</p><p>“That … that …” she faltered over her words, pointing at Remus with a single, accusatory, bony finger as she decided on the right descriptor to vilify him with, “<em>domestic pervert</em> was damn near molesting you!” Remus winced at the way she worded it, winced at the sharpness of her voice, winced at his own stupidity at leaving the door ajar. Sirius simply straightened his back.</p><p>“This <em>domestic</em>,” he spat back, “was doing as he was asked, and I was <em>enjoying</em> it.”</p><p>For a moment, Walburga was taken aback, aghast that her eldest son would speak to her in such a tone, and Remus joined in the surprise. It was just like the night Remus’ father caught them in their kitchen – Sirius was trying to make it sound like he had ordered Remus to do this, even against his will. Walburga’s righteous indignation quickly turned to rage, her face flushed maroon as she moved in so quickly a flash that Remus couldn’t even retract before his bicep was in the vice grip of her sharply manicured fingernails, tugging him down to hiss into his ear.</p><p>“My husband is going to have you <em>flayed</em> for this,” she threatened, dragging him along behind her, despite Sirius’ heated, loud protests. Absently, Remus obeyed her beckon, following her mindlessly, in such a state of panic that he could no longer hear anything Sirius was saying.</p><p>Before Remus could even conjure an excuse for this, they were in Orion’s office, standing in front of Orion’s cherrywood desk and the back of his towering black leather office chair. As he turned, Remus could feel his heart rate soar, the taste in his mouth sour, the hope in his chest sink. The darkness of Orion’s eyes settled on Remus instantly. Sweat rolled down Remus’ neck.</p><p>“Father, listen to me, <em>listen</em> to me, please,” Sirius begged, his collar still mussed from where Remus had been trying to uncover more of his throat to kiss. “Don’t listen to her, listen to <em>me</em>. This is all a colossal misunderstanding, she is making an enormous mistake. <em>Please</em>.”</p><p>“The only <em>mistake</em>,” Walburga interrupted with her hissing, “was allowing this degenerate into our home.” Her claws felt like they were breaking through the skin of Remus’ upper arm.</p><p>Orion’s expression remained unchanged. “Explain,” was all he said.</p><p>“I found this …” she struggled concocting enough insults to describe Remus, “this wretch assaulting our son in his own office!” she said, the shrill in her voice expanding and spiking.</p><p>“He was not assaulting me!” Sirius shouted, at first, but he quickly regained his practiced premeditation, deliberately evening his voice, slowing his speech. “I was <em>entirely</em> consenting. In fact, if you had been looking at all, <em>Mother</em>, you would’ve seen that I was the one in control.” </p><p>“He had you pinned to your desk!” Remus winced at her grating voice, saw a similar reaction in the tensing of Sirius’ jaw, but Sirius remained otherwise unruffled.</p><p>“I was pulling him <em>onto</em> the desk,” Sirius corrected, although somewhat incorrectly, speaking directly to Orion and ignoring the disbelieving huffs coming from his mother.</p><p>“Walburga, fetch Lyall immediately,” Orion said plainly, not a hint of animosity in his tone whatsoever. That is, until Walburga looked at him flatly without obeying. When it became clear that she was questioning his order, his voice raised to a thunderous shout. “<strong><em>Now</em></strong>!”</p><p>Surely drawn to the commotion, Lyall was no further than right outside the door, and Walburga returned at once, pushing Lyall through Orion’s open office door. The moment Lyall noticed Remus in the room, his face went tight, his eyes traveling from Remus’ disordered state and the bedraggled state of his hair. Lyall closed his eyes, squeezing them shut only a moment.</p><p>“I thought you should be present for this, Lupin,” Orion stated, boring holes through Remus’ father while Remus tried to shrink into his skin. “Considering your job is at stake.”</p><p>“Father, <em>please</em>,” Sirius begged, breath seething through tightly clenched teeth.</p><p>“Sirius, if you speak again, you will not be pleased with the actions I take,” Orion vaguely threatened, the violence of his gaze shifting to Sirius for only a glance. “Walburga.”</p><p>As if waiting for her cue, Walburga spoke. “I found <em>your</em> despicable son,” she spat, viciously poking that bony finger into Lyall’s chest, and Remus had never felt such a savage desire to harm a person that badly, “forcing himself onto <em>my</em> son with his disgusting behavior.” A twitch developed in Lyall’s eye, but he remained silent as Walburga continued. “I always knew there was something wrong with him. He so <em>obviously</em> lusted after Sirius. Like a bitch in heat.” </p><p>An immediate snarl went into Sirius’ teeth, an irritated jerk of his head. “If anyone was lusting in this house, it was me, <em>Mother</em>,” Sirius bit the words out, stepping forward, as if to bear down into her face. “And you’re speaking of the man I am <em>in love</em> with. Tread <em>very</em> carefully.”</p><p>“In love with?” Walburga scoffed in disgust. In the same moment, Lyall’s knowing gaze shot up to find Remus’ wide eyes, though Remus was surprised to find the faintest trace of satisfaction within his father’s stare. “He’s manipulated you to say this. We raised you better than this,” she said, her hissing returned in full, the silver of her eyes burned to cinder.</p><p>“<em>You</em> didn’t raise me at all,” Sirius shot back. “<em>Hope</em> did. <em>Lyall</em> did. Damn good thing they did, or I might’ve turned out like the two of you.” There was a measure of venom in his tone.</p><p>“Oh, right, because <em>they</em> raised you to become a disgusting homosexual, like your little plaything,” Walburga said with the words in the back of her throat, like they didn’t deserve to be exposed to the light, and Remus thought she might be right about that part.</p><p>“Out. Both of you,” Orion said calmly, evenly, his deep voice rumbling within his broad chest. Not foolish enough to make the same mistake twice, Walburga obeyed immediately. Sirius did not. His defiance only directed Orion’s sonorous fury toward him. “I said <em>out</em>! <strong>Now</strong>!”</p><p>“No,” Sirius said resolutely, moving to stand in front of Remus. “I’m not leaving him.”</p><p>For a moment, Orion did nothing but stare, as if in some attempt at intimidating Sirius to bend to his will. Sirius did not bend. With his hands on the desk, Orion stood, chin to chest.</p><p>“I am not asking,” Orion said, jaw clenched as he walked around the desk to stand in front of Sirius, who planted his feet firmly, despite the spike in his breathing. In one swift motion, Orion gripped the lapels of Sirius’ suit jacket, dragged Sirius from his feet and shoved him out the door, locking it before Sirius could regain his footing. It didn’t stop Sirius from pounding on the door from the other side, screaming anything that he could think of to get his father to open it.</p><p>Slowly, Orion moved back into his place behind the desk, surely to give off the distinct air of authority that accompanied that position. Without lifting his head, he spoke to Lyall.</p><p>“Did you know about this?” he asked, not a single waver in his voice.</p><p>Before Lyall could implicate himself, Remus spoke quickly, despite the breath having been stolen from him. “He didn’t know anything.” A hesitant glance was cast from Lyall.</p><p>“That works in your favor, Lyall,” Orion mused in a graveled voice. “Because if I had found out that you allowed your pillow-munching <em>whore</em> of a son to corrupt the Black family name –”</p><p>As Lyall opened his mouth to respond, Sirius’ shouts from the other side of the door interrupted his thought. “You’ve got it all wrong, Pops. Your darling son is a <em>bottom</em>.”</p><p>“Enough!” Orion bellowed, growing quite red in the face, while Remus stifled a rather disturbingly delighted grin. It vanished completely when Orion’s rage grew focused onto Remus, his black eyes hollow and empty. “Get out of my sight, you filthy little <em>faggot</em>.”</p><p>With a stuttering breath, Remus let his eyes close for only a moment, to gather himself the courage to walk out with his head raised, to reprimand himself for letting this happen, to grieve the loss of the life he had only just grown to love. The breath slipped short from his lips as he opened his eyes just in time to see his father launch across Orion’s desk, fist raised high enough to collide with Orion’s perfectly chiseled cheekbone. The brute of a man stumbled back with shock in his darkened eyes, grown darker with the blood now pooling under his socket.</p><p>On a seething breath, Lyall composed himself, smoothing the lapels of his ruffled uniform  as Remus stared on in awe. In a dangerous tone, he spoke. “Don’t you dare utter that slur in my presence, Orion. Especially not in regards to my son. Consider this my resignation.”</p><p>Without another word, Lyall grabbed Remus by the hand and pulled him from the room, where Sirius stood looking at them both in astounded fascination, mouth wide open and silver eyes swirling with pride. Carefully, Sirius reached out and took Remus’ other hand, and Remus wasn’t sure he had ever felt so at peace, his father’s hand in one, Sirius’ in the other.</p><p>With one last squeeze of Remus’ fingers, Sirius let go. “It’s my turn to be brave,” he said in a hushed tone and a nervous smile. “Wish me luck, Remus.” His eyes stopped swirling.</p><p>“Call me by the name you love,” Remus prompted, pressing his forehead to Sirius’ for one brief moment, before his mother tore him away. “And promise you’ll find your way back to me.” Even with his mother’s nails digging into his shoulders, there was resolve in Sirius’ eyes.</p><p>“I am yours, Moony,” he replied, stepping into his father’s office. “Je t'appartiens pour toujours.” Just before his mother slammed the door in Remus’ face, there was something in Sirius’ gaze that Remus had seen a thousand times in a thousand circumstances. It was there when they drank together at midnight in Sirius’ bedroom, it was there when Sirius was sweet-talking his way into a business deal, it was there when Remus woke him every morning because it was something so definitively Sirius that it was never <em>not</em> there. It was rudimentary, practically a fundamental pillar of his personality, and <em>nobody</em> wore mischief better than Sirius Black.</p><p> With a bit of mischief in his own smile, Remus let his father lead him away, back to the place that would no longer be their home after today. Somehow, that thought didn’t quite terrify him the way it had an hour ago. After all, there was plenty of mischief left to manage.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>I know that you know the feeling</em>
</p><p>
  <em>I know that we're giving in</em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Merci,” Remus nodded to the owner with an amiable smile as he left the shop, paper bags full of groceries tucked into each arm. As he made his way down the back alleys to the lofty flat, he went over the recipe again in his head, trying to decide if he’d forgotten anything.</p><p>As he reached the door, he kicked against the bottom a bit to get the attention of the occupant inside. The door flew open nearly immediately, a lean shadow darkening the threshold against the light of the late-morning sun behind it. “Finally! Did you buy the whole <em>shop</em>?”</p><p>With a playful roll of his eyes, Remus pushed past James Potter into their flat. “It’s a complicated dish, there was a lot we didn’t have.” With a groan, Remus heaved the bags onto the kitchen countertop as James excitedly went through each bag, examining every strange jar and box and bag he encountered. After he was satisfied, he handed each package to Remus.</p><p>“This is some dinner you’ve got planned. Are you sure I’m invited?” he joked, winking in Remus’ direction from behind his thick frames. Again, Remus rolled his eyes.</p><p>“This is <em>your</em> flat, I’m not going to kick you out,” he laughed. “No matter how much I’d like the place all to ourselves,” he added, playfully under his breath, casting James a glance.</p><p>James reached over and pinched him underneath the ribs, leaving Remus to flinch away with a subdued laugh. “Stop doing that. This is <em>our</em> flat. You don’t work for me, Remus.”</p><p>“I work for your father. Isn’t that the same thing?” Remus countered as he continued to pull items from the bags, setting them on the marble island countertop.</p><p>“No, it’s not!” James argued while laughing, taking each empty paper bag and folding them to keep them under the kitchen sink, just in case. James Potter was an enigma like that, always saving, hardly spending, despite the vast amount of wealth ever at his fingertips. “God, just how <em>conditioned</em> were you at the Black estate? My father says Lyall is just the same.”</p><p>“I’m still not sure why he hired my father in the first place. Da tells me he does nothing more than take notes of Fleamont’s wild ramblings about crème rinses and setting sprays.”</p><p>“Not true,” James said with a smirk. “Sometimes he drives Dad places.”</p><p>“We did <em>everything</em> for the Blacks,” Remus emphasized. “We cooked their meals, made their beds, polished their silver … hell, I woke Sirius up every morning.” James’ smirk grew.</p><p>“Bet you miss doing that,” he said with knowing in his hazel eyes.</p><p>Remus didn’t respond to that statement. “I’m just saying. Your father practically pays me to be your friend. And he pays me too well, considering you do more for me than I do for you.”</p><p>“You’re underselling yourself again, Remus,” James admonished as he opened the refrigerator to pour himself a glass of orange juice. “You’re the entire reason we were able to buy Slughorn out from under the Black Firm. Your marketing strategy is what won us the bid.”</p><p>Another roll of his eyes, bigger and more dramatic than the last two. “<em>Lily</em> is what won us that bid. She molded my meager strategy into something that lured Horace. Nothing more.”</p><p> “Right,” James said with a flash of his eyebrows. “That’s why my father gave you a position at the head of Slughorn’s marketing team with a corner office. Because of <em>Lily</em>.”</p><p>“And I told your father that I would <em>consult</em>, but I don’t want that office. Have you seen it? All metal and glass and fluorescent lighting,” he shuddered for dramatic effect. “Lily will get much more use out of that office than I would’ve. Corporate life doesn’t suit me, James.”</p><p>With a snort, James let himself laugh. “Which is funny, considering the first time I met you was at a <em>corporate</em> cocktail party and you were wearing a very <em>corporate</em> suit.”</p><p>“And now you know <em>why</em> I was wearing that corporate costume,” Remus said, raising a single eyebrow in James’ direction with a smug grin on his lips as he stole the glass of orange juice from James’ hands to take a greedy victory sip. “You should thank me, really, considering I headhunted that defector for you. Plenty of <em>colorful</em> Black secrets you’ve learned since then.”</p><p>“Speaking of that defector,” James said with fondness in his voice. “I’m not staying for dinner.” Remus opened his mouth to argue, but James tapped it closed again. “I’ll be at Lily’s.”</p><p>“He’s going to want to see you too, you know,” Remus said as James stole the glass back to take a sip of his own. “The two of you have been talking almost more often than he’s been talking to <em>me</em>.” He mumbled his words to give the impression of sulking. A smile betrayed him.</p><p>At the sight of that smile, a reflective one appeared on James’ lips. “Listen, there was a lot of work we had to get done before he could make his grand entrance.”</p><p>“Oh, I’ve heard,” Remus said, leaning on the counter. “Da hears everything that happens in those meetings, so I get to hear about everything twice. Especially the part where your father got enough information from our beloved turncoat to get Orion indicted for tax fraud.”</p><p>A devious smile appeared on James’ face. “You heard that bit already? I thought he was going to wait to tell you in person.” With a sigh, Remus tossed his hands into the air helplessly.</p><p>“You know he has no patience when he gets excited.”</p><p>“Which is why I’m not staying for dinner,” James said, grinning wildly, and Remus was surprised at the blush that swept through his cheeks. It had been too long since he felt the friendly, familiar heat of a blush, and he recognized how euphoric it was to feel again.</p><p>“On second thought, I’m rather glad you’re <em>not</em> staying,” Remus said with a smile that betrayed the daydream happening inside his head. It was such an enthralling daydream, in fact, that James had to snap his fingers in Remus’ face to draw his attention again.</p><p>“Do you want me to stay and help you cook?” he asked with a curious expression.</p><p>“I appreciate the offer, but you know I’m going to say no,” Remus replied with a cocked eyebrow. “I love you, James, but we both know you’re shite in the kitchen.” James offered a shrug of half-agreement as Remus continued while gathering the ingredients already in their cupboards. “It baffles me how you can expertly brew an illegal elixir, but you can’t boil an egg to save your life.”</p><p>“I’m not quite an expert yet,” James said with a smile that was far too smug for him to be admitting inadequacy. “You <em>were</em> rather bitchy last month, even after the wolfsbane.”</p><p>With a laugh that bordered somewhere between a groan and a growl, Remus added his argument, “Considering I used to grow <em>fangs</em>, I’ll take being a little bitchy every now and then.”</p><p>Another snap of James’ fingers, totally disregarding his culinary inability. “That reminds me, I noticed we were a bit low on the wolfsbane last month, so I got Lily to help me with a new batch last night. I stashed a few of those smaller vials in the top drawer of your nightstand.”</p><p>“Oh, is <em>that</em> what you were doing last night?” Remus goaded with a sarcastically arrogant smile. “Must’ve been a tremendous batch, considering you didn’t get in until nearly sunrise.”</p><p>A loud laugh shot up from James’ throat. “You’re one to talk, I saw the … <em>supplies</em> you’ve got in that nightstand, Remus John.” He nudged Remus’ elbow. “I thought your guest was only staying a week, but there are enough rubbers in there to last through the rest of the year.”</p><p>“I expect to be <em>busy</em> this week,” Remus said with a cartoonishly giant smile. “I guess that means the two of you don’t talk as much as I thought, since he didn’t tell you that Fleamont just promoted him to CFO of Slughorn Pharmaceuticals, starting <em>after</em> a little vacation with me.”</p><p>For the first time since Remus moved in with James Potter, James was speechless, his mouth hanging open in surprise and awe. And just like that, the peace was over, and James was whooping and yelling and jumping onto Remus’ shoulders in celebration.</p><p>“<em>Remus</em>!” he shouted to the ceiling. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?!”</p><p>Remus just laughed. “It was meant to be a surprise. I guess I have no patience, either.”</p><p>“Finally,” James eventually sighed in relief. “We’ll all be together again.”</p><p>“Together again,” Remus agreed with a grin as James pressed his lips to Remus’ cheek.</p><p> </p><p>As Remus stirred the beurre manié to the coq au vin on the stovetop, he hummed softly to <em>When I Fall in Love</em> playing from the Victrola next to the open balcony doors. He’d tried to refuse his mother when she offered her favourite Nat King Cole record to him when he left for Paris, but he could never refuse her for long. By that time, they’d settled into the guest quarters on the Potter estate, a home much more expansive than the Black’s servant’s quarters.</p><p>Hope hadn’t been the only one to cry that day. It surprised Remus more than he thought it could to see his father cry. For as long as Remus could remember, he had spent every day with his father, not a moment apart. And suddenly, Remus would be in another country, technically on another continent. Thinking that, Remus had found his own eyes full of tears, too.</p><p>But it hadn’t been all bad – the train from London to Paris was affordable, certainly on Lyall’s new standard of pay on the Potter’s payroll. More than once, his parents had come over to spend the weekend with him. Sometimes the Potters accompanied them – Remus and Lyall would cook French cuisine for everyone. Those weekends were expended far too quickly.</p><p>On their last trip to visit, Remus had gifted his mother a brand-new copy of <em>Love Is The Thing</em>. She’d cried then, just the same as she had when it had been a gift from Lyall. That night, she and Lyall had danced on the balcony with the tune of <em>Where Can I Go Without You</em> moving in and out of the loft on the Parisian breeze. It left Remus with an indescribable ache.</p><p>It wasn’t because Remus didn’t speak to Sirius at every available opportunity. After all, there was a phone in his bedroom, just like he’d promised that day they’d been caught by Walburga, and he and Sirius used that to their every advantage. But this wasn’t the arrangement Remus had expected – instead, he was in Paris, while Sirius remained behind in London.</p><p>There was so much restraining him to his childhood home, but nothing more entangling than his own mother and father. The day that the Lupins had moved out of the butler’s quarters, the day that Lyall quit, the day their blissful secret had been burst, Sirius hadn’t returned to say goodbye. The terror in Remus’ chest over his absence was amplified when Cornelius drove them away from the mansion for the last time and Remus looked back to see Sirius standing at the edge of his balcony, one black eye swollen shut. He had <em>begged</em> Cornelius to go back for him, thrashing against the car door, locked from the inside, his voice raked raw from the clamor.</p><p>It was a month before Remus had heard anything about Sirius. If it hadn’t been for James, Remus probably would’ve driven himself back to the Black estate to try to save Sirius’ life. The Potters had opened their home to the Lupins immediately, offering them living quarters and employment on the spot, with Lyall’s longstanding history of service and loyalty to the Black family. With the Blacks being their eternal business rivals, James knew every wily way to find out information about Orion and Walburga, and just exactly what they were up to in that house.</p><p>When Remus found out that Sirius was even <em>alive</em>, he let himself cry into James’ chest a bit, and James had let him, <em>easily</em>. They would fix this, James had promised, and that night, two tickets to Paris by train were purchased under very transparent circumstances. Word quickly got to Orion and Walburga and they, unable to find Sirius within the manor, raced to Paris to impede the liberation of their eldest son. When Remus stepped off that train with James, instead of Sirius, he reveled in the gut-wrenching realization in their bitter expressions. Smiled, even.</p><p>What they hadn’t counted on was the unexpected return of their youngest son, or his surreptitious aid in Sirius’ escape. It was Regulus who sneaked Sirius from the mansion into the woods just outside the gardens of the estate. It was Regulus who mentioned how strange it was that the Potters were buying two tickets for James to move to Paris <em>alone</em>. It was Regulus who lied to his parents’ faces – why, <em>yes</em>, he <em>had</em> seen Sirius sneaking out of his bedroom earlier that very evening, now that they had mentioned it. It was Regulus who had packed Sirius’ bags, as well as his own, before they left the Black estate for the last time, a final hug at the front gate before Sirius got into a car with Fleamont Potter and Regulus took a taxi back to the airport.</p><p>After his ordeal, it was hard to get Sirius to slow down enough to breathe as eager as he was to get revenge on his father for treating him like a prisoner in his own home, and not just for the last month, but for the entirety of his life. Even though Remus worried about how much manic energy he was expending toward trying to destroy his father’s legacy, it was so much nicer to have him tucked in the safety of Euphemia and Fleamont’s home, where he could call Remus every night from his own bedroom. And he hadn’t missed a single night in five months.</p><p>Before it was safe for Sirius to come out of hiding, they had to find a way to get rid of Orion, and Sirius was more than happy to supply the plans he’d been making. When he’d left Black manor, he’d brought with him boxes upon boxes of legal documents that incriminated Orion Black on multiple counts of tax evasion, tax fraud, and illegal insider stock trading. In the end, it had been nearly <em>easy</em> to bring down the beast. Throughout that period, Fleamont had been smitten with Sirius’ ease at navigating those documents, his impressive grasp of financial systems and strategies, his sound judgement in keeping himself out of every single case that ended up bringing Orion to his knees. Before long, Sirius found himself at the end of an offer letter from Fleamont’s recently acquired company, Slughorn Pharmaceuticals. Of course, that meant a bit of relocation, but Fleamont was fairly certain that wouldn’t be a problem.</p><p>Still, it had been <em>six months</em>. Six months without kissing Sirius Black, without touching him, without breathing in the scent of him, and it was enough to make Remus’ skin crawl with a torment to be touched in return. There were plenty of hugs from James and Lily but, of course, they were in no way a viable substitution for the touch that he had been craving.</p><p>With a sigh that bordered against nervous, Remus sang to ease the tension building in his chest. After all, it had been six months, and a lot had changed. No longer was Remus the only positive influence in Sirius’ life – maybe Sirius would grow and find that he had outgrown Remus, too. Maybe he was only attracted to the taboo of Remus, just as Remus had once feared.</p><p>“In a restless world like this is, love is ended before it’s begun,” Remus sang softly as he topped the chicken in his braiser with diced bacon, allowing himself a succeeding deep breath.</p><p>“And too many moonlight kisses,” he heard from behind him in a voice that was as bracing as it was sweet, as familiar as it was strange, and as deep as it was light. Before Remus could move, he continued to sing, slow and subdued, “Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun.”</p><p>With a quiet smile, Remus turned to see Sirius standing in the open doorway of his flat with a smile of his own. As Remus took him in, he reminded himself to memorize every detail of this moment – the chilled breeze moving in to sweep the delicate lace curtains across the threshold of the balcony door, the bouquet of purple violets and white heliotrope and pink camelia in Sirius’ hands, the way Sirius’ silver eyes glowed full and white in the light of a nearly-full moon, the dark tendrils of hair that hung down from where he had carelessly tied it atop his head the way he knew Remus was fond of, the same suit he’d worn the night of the party.</p><p>“<em>Sirius</em>,” Remus breathed out, dropping the spoon he’d been holding with an awful splattering, his attention so focused on the ethereal image of the one he’d so often imagined.</p><p>With an almost cautious step forward, his head lowered to watch Remus from over the tops of his glasses – black on the top, tortoiseshell round the bottom – the same ones Remus had placed on his nose every morning for so many years, he set the flowers on the countertop.</p><p>“When I give my heart,” Sirius sang, moving in close enough that Remus could feel the breath of his song move across the curve of his neck. His touch as it followed Remus’ spine was more delicate than it had ever been, ghosting over Remus so faintly that Remus began to wonder if he was dreaming Sirius’ entire presence. It was only the muted scent of nicotine and the warmth of Sirius’ breath and the intimate vibrations of Sirius’ throat so close to his own that made Remus unequivocally sure. “It will be completely, or I’ll never give my heart.”</p><p>When his fingers moved into Remus’ hair, gently tilting Remus’ neck to the side so that their lips could brush, Remus responded in kind, singing onto Sirius’ lips. “And the moment I can feel that you feel that way too,” he offered, breathless in the closeness of Sirius’ kiss.</p><p>“Is when I fall in love,” Sirius finished as Remus found himself clutching desperately onto the lapels of Sirius’ suit jacket just to keep himself standing, “<em>with</em> <em>you</em>.” As the sweeping orchestra of the song faded, Sirius strengthened his grip on the back of Remus’ neck and pulled him in, his other hand holding tight to the curve of Remus’ back to get him as close as he could as he kissed him, deeply and longingly and achingly, like they had been apart for a century.</p><p>“Call me by the name you love,” Remus whispered, slipping his arms around Sirius’ neck to anchor himself there, weightless in bliss. “And tell me you’ll be mine forever.”</p><p>“<em>Moony</em>,” Sirius said with a rapturous sigh, and maybe it was the physical stimulation of Sirius’ breath in his ear or the actual touch of Sirius’ hands at his waist or the love song playing in the background, but Remus had never felt such a profound devotion in all of his life. “I was yours in the basement of your house on the full moon, I was yours in every afternoon we spent under your favourite willow tree,” he hummed, kissing every inch of Remus’ face between the words of his profession. “I was yours in the front seat of the Rolls Royce with steam on the windows, and I’ll be yours right here on this countertop if you can stand to let that coq au vin that I <em>know</em> you slaved over all evening simmer on the stove for just a few minutes too long.”</p><p>Without a moment of pause, Remus took Sirius by the hips and lifted him onto the marble countertop. His reaction was the same as it had been the night Remus had done the same thing in the butler’s quarters of the Black estate, the night Lyall caught them in the kitchen.</p><p>“I <em>did</em> slave over that damn coq au vin,” Remus said, accentuating his French pronunciation to see the way Sirius clenched his jaw in response. “But right now,” he prompted, pulling Sirius’ mouth down to meet his own in a fevered kiss that spoke of the last few months apart, desperate and lonely, and years of needless and relentless pining. “J’en ai rien à foutre.”</p><p>“God, all that time we wasted being young and dumb,” Sirius laughed breathily as Remus’ kiss moved down every inch of Sirius’ throat he could reach, fingers wrestling with buttons.</p><p>“I’m not wasting a second more,” Remus hummed joyously, drawing Sirius forward to balance him on his hips, their lips still together as often as able, carrying Sirius to the bedroom.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I would love to hear your comments, or you can send me a shout on tumblr <a href="https://mollymarymarie.tumblr.com/">@mollymarymarie</a> ❤️</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I would love to hear your comments, or you can send me a shout on tumblr <a href="https://mollymarymarie.tumblr.com/">@mollymarymarie</a> ❤️</p></blockquote></div></div>
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